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| “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” |
| —Ezekiel 11:19 |
Life often challenges us by requiring us to make a myriad of choices. We base those choices on two main components: the facts surrounding the choices and our feelings about those facts. Thus, every choice involves facts and feelings. It’s sometimes difficult to sort out which should become the dominating factor in our decision making.
When I was in seventh grade, I met a girl at church camp in July. She was a petite blond and I was instantly taken by her. I had previously had very poor experiences relating to females. So, I expected that, as had always happened in the past, this girl would not respond well to me.
Nevertheless, I made an effort to talk with her and soon found her willing to engage in conversation. When the week of camp ended, she gave me her address and invited me to write to her, which I did. We corresponded several times during the next few months.
In December, I attended a conference-wide youth retreat and this girl was there, too. She greeted me as someone she was glad to see and asked if she could sit with me. I was glad to see her and was surprised during the first session of the retreat when she reached down and took my hand in hers.
Over lunch, she told me that she really liked me and thought it was fun to have a long-distance boyfriend. None of her girlfriends had such a relationship. And, she told me she felt it made her special.
We continued to correspond with each other. Soon, another summer rolled around and we both agreed to attend a weekend retreat at the church camp where we had met.
As had happened in the previous December, at first she seemed genuinely glad to see me. She even gave me a hug, something that had never happened to me before. We spent most of the first day together. But then, I noticed she seemed to drift away. Soon, I saw her talking to a very handsome and athletic young man. Before long, she was sitting with him during sessions of the retreat. It was as if I had disappeared.
Naturally, I tried to talk with her about it. But, she acted like I was afflicted with a fatal disease. Needless to say, I was confused and hurt.
About a week after I arrived home, I received a letter from her. She explained that she was torn. She claimed to really like me. But, she also was very attracted to the new boy she had met. She acknowledged that she liked me because I was smart. But, the new boy was handsome and athletic, two qualities I most certainly did not have. I wrote back a fairly neutral letter encouraging her to follow her heart. And, I never heard from her again. In fact, I never saw her again at any conference youth retreats or summer camp.
Of course, this was just a silly teenage romance. Most of you probably have had more than one of these kinds of experiences. In my case, this was a very new experience for me. But, it illustrated to me how choices are influenced by facts and by feelings.
In our relationship with God, and with each other, it’s important that we build our relationships on facts and our feelings about those facts. But, we need to guard our hearts and avoid any circumstance that might cause us to experience unnecessary self-conflict in our decision making. In other words, we must approach life with a single-mindedness that makes certain our heart is pointing us in a proper direction.
God spoke through the Prophet Ezekiel, as recorded in Ezekiel 11:19, and gave this promise to God’s people:
I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
Having an undivided heart is a really important quality for Christians to strive to accept. God wants us to love Him with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. He wants us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. He wants us to have a singular purpose in our lives: to serve Him with all of our energy and strength.
Let’s ask God this day to give us undivided hearts. Let’s depend on the new spirit that God freely gives us to remove any stony covering on our hearts and receive His gift of hearts of flesh that can love in purity and holiness.
