a dawdling heart

I was reading proverbs this morning and it reminded me about how central the condition of my heart is to my rubber-hits-the-road life and future.

A peaceful heart gives life to the flesh (leads to a healthy body),
but envy makes the bones rot. - Proverbs 14:30

But where does this life-giving the peace come from? Only from God – because through Jesus I now have a peaceful relationship with God I can be peaceful about my life and future.  Discontented envy – wanting what God has not given me – will not bring me life in any way. I’ll be a slave to what I want instead of being set free in Jesus.

So from a heart that has been made peace with by Jesus, right actions should flow. The complication is that they often don’t – it takes a while for my heart to catch up with what I know in my head, so there’s a lag in my actions too. God’s gracious provision of the Bible* means we have a constant reminder that challenges us not to let the reality of our transformed relationship with God stop in our heads. Even better, real change is not simply bought about by our own efforts to translate head to heart, but by God working in us and around us, to remind us of the peace we have with Him.

Well, that ended up sounding much more theoretical than practical, but it really does work!

* and a million other things – the Holy Spirit, friends, church etc etc!

image taken from flickr, posted by brykmantra