Heart Condition
What’s the condition of your heart?
Last Friday night, I met with my men’s group (DIBs – Dudes In the Basement) for our DIBs Fall Summit 2017. DIBs is a group of guys who have committed to meeting together for 20 years. We have 17 years left in our commitment. During the Summit, we focused on the condition of our hearts. After some food and ping-pong, we gathered to talk about our hearts.
When it was time for me to share, I confessed that I felt overly busy. I honestly left very little room for “being still and knowing that He is God” (Psalm 46:10). There are a lot of great things I am doing – Dynamic Marriage, Stretched Men Group, Rooftop Reflections book launch, new job in June at Siemens, H.O.P.E., etc. I shared that I had been having trouble sleeping over the course of the previous two or three weeks. I honestly believe I was dealing with the feeling of overwhelm.
In my sharing, I paraphrased Psalm 19:14 to fit my current condition and desire: May the words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart AND MY SCHEDULE AND MY TO DO LIST be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Does my schedule reflect a heart for God?
Do my thoughts reflect a heart for God?
Do my reactions and my actions reflect a heart for God?
Do my motives reflect a heart for God?
What am I doing to gain a better understanding of God’s heart?
How am I helping others see God’s heart?
These are all questions I believe are worth answering or at least pondering as I consider the condition of my own heart.
The men in the group challenged me to look at my schedule and consider what may need to go. Following the conversation, I realized I needed to start by giving up one activity that I was doing out of loyalty instead of out of passion.
In his book The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks encourages readers to give up living in their Zones of Competence and Excellence so they can live in their Zone of Genius. In order to live in this place, we must constantly be looking at our activities and commitments. We must do the hard work of finding where we are passions lie and getting rid of the other stuff.
I think this also applies to our heart. In what we do, think, read, say, etc. are we drawing closer to God’s heart?