Matt's Muzings
Listening to the Heart
February, 2006 Volume 8, Issue 62
After my last Muzings the question of ‘how is your heart?’, sat with me and I felt like God was saying to me, you wrote it, are you going to live it?
Let me explain.
I taught for a week in a DTS in Scotland and had a good time with them. Then I went to an International DTS Center meeting just outside of London. I was with there for a week as we talked about DTS’s around the world. I left Friday night from Heathrow for home having to go through Amsterdam. As I was sitting on my flight in Amsterdam waiting for the final people to board I heard an announcement about the flight being overbooked and they would compensate with cash amount vs. a voucher, if someone was willing to stay behind. I jumped up and told them I would do it. They put me in a very nice hotel and paid for my meals. I was set!
The next day, I went into Amsterdam and walked around the city and thought of my son and his doing his DTS there. Then, I went to the airport in the late afternoon and waited until my evening flight. As I got to the gate I checked in at the desk and the agent said “We are overbooked and are offering a cash compensation”. I smiled and said, “You gave me double the amount of cash compensation last night and if you pay that I will stay, but otherwise I would love to see my wife.” She made some calls and agreed on the same amount as the night before and another night was taken care of. I made it to the hotel late and as I was settling in I had a sense that God was up to something. I had another day all to myself, with nothing to distract me and I had just written on connecting the head to the heart.
Listening to the heart
I know I had just written about how important it was to be connected to your heart but I didn’t think God would require it of me so quickly. I sat down at my desk in room 341 the next morning and asked God, “What questions do I ask?” I had a sense of the first question, “How am I doing?” I started listening to my own heart and taking notes. I drew out 7 ‘mind-maps’ of things going on in my heart that needed ongoing work over the next hours.
What I found
I had just talked with a friend at the DTS Center meetings so my heart was freshly stirred to think. In essence, I realized my heart was sick. The proverb, ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick’ came to me. There were expectations I had placed on God’s word to me and I haven’t seen Him ‘perform’ the way I expected Him to. I was disappointed and my heart was slowly withdrawing from Him. I found a new awareness of the need for God to dwell in and comfort my heart.
On another level, I was clearly reminded that understanding my pain and frustration with recent events doesn’t give me control over them. I had cared and made myself vulnerable and was hurt in a leadership situation. The very thing that got me in trouble in this situation was the only way of correcting it again with God. It is the mystery of love and a Catch 22 as I wasn’t sure I wanted to be vulnerable again. My prayer is, “God, give me the desire to desire you more than anything else. Even more than my own safety.”
There were more thoughts and more understanding but you get the point. I needed some open-heart surgery and in a sense am still at it as God clears away some crud that was messing up the linkage between my head and my heart.
I finally did leave Amsterdam the next night with extra cash and a new sense of how much I need God to help me watch over my heart. I am tempted to think the cash was the more important gift from God, but I know better. Cash is not a problem to Him, getting me to a place where I can deal with my heart is. He went out of His way to do it and for both I am very, very grateful.
How is your ‘heart-work’ going?
May God richly bless you,
Matt and Celia
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