Set my Heart
Setting my heart to do something is different than completing it. The setting of my heart is really the setting of my intention. God has given mankind free will to set our own intention.
Free will affects everything. Without free will, love cannot exist. God is committed to love, which, by default, means He is completely committed to free will. In His brilliance, God can subject Himself to the free will He has given His creation, and still work out what He desires!
God is amazing in his wisdom, knowledge, love, and in His sheer power to calculate all of the nuances of my heart, 6 billion other hearts, each going their own way in varying levels of agreement with Him, and still maintaining an unbreakable promise to "work all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose". Amazing doesn't come close to describing the knowledge and power of the uncreated God.
But in the midst of all that happens between my free will and God's shepherding of creation...something miraculous is promised me based solely on my intention: blessing and the power positively change my experience of events that others would call tragic or unpleasant:
Psalm 84:5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage. 6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca, They make it a spring; The rain also covers it with pools. 7 They go from strength to strength; Each one appears before God in Zion.
"Passing through the valley of Baca" means going through something hard. It is literally the "valley of weeping." God says setting my heart, or simply using my free will to set my "intention," to spend my life on a pilgrimage...to view my life as a journey to get closer to God...will change everything about my life. It will literally give me the power to "make" the valleys of weeping into springs and pools. Resources of refreshing and strength are what my trials can become, if I will make them. God says this all flows from my intention.
Setting my heart on a pilgrimage means deciding in advance what my life is going to be about, and then letting decisions flow out of that...I picture it like my life "mission statement."
God's heart, His desire, is to be with me. It is why He put Adam in the Garden, why He put Jesus in the manger, and why He sends the Holy Spirit to live in the spirit of all who would choose Him. It is the why behind His plan to judge sin and drive evil off the planet...to push "play" on what free will "paused" with the first bite of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
When my mission statement, or the setting of my heart, agrees with His desire, it changes everything. Intentions really matter with God. He understands the nuances between intention, and the lack of maturity to see the intention through. He doesn't require strength. God is bringing strength to the party. He wants intention. Every movement of my heart, when it is set on pilgrimage, is celebrated by God. He says there is power in the intention: power to see the things He sees, to change sorrow into joy, strength, and refreshing. Literally, the power to make what is black...white, what is dull...bright, what is evil...good. All from intention...before the first hint of discipline is visible. Before maturity is developed, setting my heart changes everything.
Intention changes the way I see my choices and the way I see God's hand in my life...strength to strength, growing stronger in agreement with God by seeing things the way He sees them. Setting my heart to make getting close to God what my life is about is like signing up for the God-guided tour of life instead of the self-guided one.
The last part of this short passage is the most dramatic:
"Each one appears before God in Zion." This is Psalm-speak for heaven on earth ...Immanuel... God with us. It is a guarantee of success not only for the end of the race, but for the journey itself. I will appear before God then, and when I agree with Him in His desire, I appear before Him right now, and He appears more clearly before me...strength to strength, clarity to clarity...until the things of the world grow strangely dim...and the things of God grow more clear.
1 Corinthians 12:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
Free will affects everything. Without free will, love cannot exist. God is committed to love, which, by default, means He is completely committed to free will. In His brilliance, God can subject Himself to the free will He has given His creation, and still work out what He desires!
God is amazing in his wisdom, knowledge, love, and in His sheer power to calculate all of the nuances of my heart, 6 billion other hearts, each going their own way in varying levels of agreement with Him, and still maintaining an unbreakable promise to "work all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose". Amazing doesn't come close to describing the knowledge and power of the uncreated God.
But in the midst of all that happens between my free will and God's shepherding of creation...something miraculous is promised me based solely on my intention: blessing and the power positively change my experience of events that others would call tragic or unpleasant:
Psalm 84:5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage. 6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca, They make it a spring; The rain also covers it with pools. 7 They go from strength to strength; Each one appears before God in Zion.
"Passing through the valley of Baca" means going through something hard. It is literally the "valley of weeping." God says setting my heart, or simply using my free will to set my "intention," to spend my life on a pilgrimage...to view my life as a journey to get closer to God...will change everything about my life. It will literally give me the power to "make" the valleys of weeping into springs and pools. Resources of refreshing and strength are what my trials can become, if I will make them. God says this all flows from my intention.
Setting my heart on a pilgrimage means deciding in advance what my life is going to be about, and then letting decisions flow out of that...I picture it like my life "mission statement."
God's heart, His desire, is to be with me. It is why He put Adam in the Garden, why He put Jesus in the manger, and why He sends the Holy Spirit to live in the spirit of all who would choose Him. It is the why behind His plan to judge sin and drive evil off the planet...to push "play" on what free will "paused" with the first bite of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
When my mission statement, or the setting of my heart, agrees with His desire, it changes everything. Intentions really matter with God. He understands the nuances between intention, and the lack of maturity to see the intention through. He doesn't require strength. God is bringing strength to the party. He wants intention. Every movement of my heart, when it is set on pilgrimage, is celebrated by God. He says there is power in the intention: power to see the things He sees, to change sorrow into joy, strength, and refreshing. Literally, the power to make what is black...white, what is dull...bright, what is evil...good. All from intention...before the first hint of discipline is visible. Before maturity is developed, setting my heart changes everything.
Intention changes the way I see my choices and the way I see God's hand in my life...strength to strength, growing stronger in agreement with God by seeing things the way He sees them. Setting my heart to make getting close to God what my life is about is like signing up for the God-guided tour of life instead of the self-guided one.
The last part of this short passage is the most dramatic:
"Each one appears before God in Zion." This is Psalm-speak for heaven on earth ...Immanuel... God with us. It is a guarantee of success not only for the end of the race, but for the journey itself. I will appear before God then, and when I agree with Him in His desire, I appear before Him right now, and He appears more clearly before me...strength to strength, clarity to clarity...until the things of the world grow strangely dim...and the things of God grow more clear.
1 Corinthians 12:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
Comments
Post a Comment
I appreciate your comments.