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A Heart Undivided*

  • August 21, 2017
  • Posted by: Kara Bratton
  • Category: Devotions
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Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. – Psalm 86:11

Think for a moment about the number of roles you play.  There is no shortage of them: child, parent, spouse, grandparent, friend, employee, employer, boss, teammate, volunteer, mentor, neighbor, and so on.  We may not be all of these things at once, but I am willing to bet that most of us can easily fill five or six of these plus a few more that didn’t make my list.

Now as if this juggling act isn’t difficult enough, add into the mix the need to keep everything balanced.  You hear that all the time; maintain a proper balance in your life.  How is that possible with so many roles and responsibilities weighing us down?  How can I be good at all these things when each pulls me in a different direction, demanding my immediate attention without a shred of concern for the needs of the other areas of my life?

It’s simple:  Don’t divide your heart.

If you pour everything into your job, your family life will suffer.  If you pour everything into your family you’ll have no time for your community.  If you volunteer for every group you can find your job performance will deteriorate.  This is true because on your own power, you can’t possibly manage to spread yourself thin enough to perform these tasks efficiently enough to satisfy everyone.  So instead of trying to do it all, seek peace in God through a right relationship with Him, and then ask God to show you what you should be doing.

If you look back at my list you’ll notice there is nothing related to our faith life.  That’s understandable because it highlights our self-centered natures. We don’t think to look to God first.  We know the importance of being independent.  We strive to work longer and harder to accomplish everything on our own and the results speak for themselves.  But let me ask you a few questions:

Are you successful at work at the cost of your relationships?

Are you befriended by many but don’t know what to say to your own children?

Are you confident in your abilities to lead others but unable to listen to what those people are saying to you?

If you didn’t like the answers you gave to those questions it’s likely that you’re suffering from a divided heart and are now trying to manage multiple things with only a portion of the strength required.  It’s like putting a spoonful of sugar into your coffee one granule at a time.

Unite your heart in Christ, or as David says in verse 11 of the Psalm, “Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.”  When we turn to God and put our trust in Him, seeking His guidance for our lives, we are better equipped to manage our multi-faceted lives because we stop believing that we are leading it. We open our minds to the truth that it is God who leads us through it.  Deuteronomy 28:12 reminds us that if we are obedient to His Word, God will bless the work of our hands.

Everything we do will be done to His glory and will be blessed by the One who created, saved, and sustains us.  It doesn’t eliminate the challenge, but through the power of God it ensures the outcome!

Devotion by Richard Schumacher*

*Used with author’s permission