Where Is Your Heart?

Where are you headed this year? 

More importantly...on it's present course, where is your heart headed?

Since I'm more of a be-er than a doer I tend to think of things through the lens of who I am and who I'm becoming as I journey in the doing. I am greatly encouraged and instructed by 1 Samuel 16:7... 

"Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 

So my goals tend to be inward focused. "God, where is my heart? How is my heart? Where does it need to be...to go?"

I also want to consider where I am in life when forming expectations. Am I in transition? Am I grieving a loss? Is this a time of storm or calm? In the midst of it all, is my heart remaining anchored...am I drifting...or being blown off course? 

There will always be much doing...daily tasks, commitments to appointments, relationships, jobs, and areas of service. But in all that, how is my heart? Where is my heart? And where is my hope?

So now that the wave of preparation, activities and fun that marks each Christmas season has subsided, I have been longing to take a breath and reflect on where I am and where I'm going in this new year. 

Here is what I've realized as I've pondered in the quiet, and in the doing, over the past couple of weeks...

I’m still finding my sea legs for this new-ish journey of empty nesting (year two and holding steady); needing to find structure, but remain flexible. Same song as full time motherhood, I guess, but on an unfamiliar stage. I’ve dubbed this my New Middle School phase…with all the awkwardness and uncertainty that comes with being in between the old and the new. 

But in far greater hope, I remember that I survived those years the first time around without the benefit of life experience and deep faith. And I hear Jesus beckoning with a call that is also a promise, “Let us go over to the other side.” (Mark 4:35) I need to continue embracing all of this with honesty, trust, and patience knowing that I have those new morning mercies to cling to and a Savior that knows the way. 

He's calling me to persevere. He knows the way. He knows my heart. And He knows that I desire to always have my heart in His hands...my life, my coming and going, all things in His hands. I want to say, "With all my heart, I will follow Jesus," but I first need Him to show me where I'm keeping some of my heart to myself. And so I begin this new year...

Search me, O God, and know my heart; 

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, 

and lead me in the way everlasting.

 Pslam 139: 23,24 

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Where is your heart?