Listen to My Heart

Listen to our hearts.  

Hear our spirits sing.  

A song of praise that flows, from those you have redeemed.  

We will use the words we know to tell you what an awesome God you are.  

But words are not enough to tell you of our love.  

So listen to our hearts.

Last Wednesday night in the teen room we were talking about worship.  To close off the evening this was one of the final songs that we sang.  The “time of worship” during PV&J that night didn’t exactly run smoothly.  The projectors were not lined up, the Scriptures were cut off on the right side of the screen, and the final video didn’t play.  The distractions seemed to be limitless.  Satan is tricky like that.

As the night came to a close and we sang this song, God humbled me greatly.  I had gotten so caught up in how wrong things had gone and the “performance” that I had lost sight of why we were all truly there.  WORSHIP!  My lips were singing praises to my God, but my heart was singing complaints and worries.  As I sang (off key as always) and asked God to listen to my heart He made it ever so clear to me that my heart was not singing praises to His name.  It was like He said to me…”okay I’m listening to your heart and your heart says….I’m stressed.  I’m frustrated.  I’m distracted.  I’m trying to please people.”

I was proclaiming one thing with my mouth and a completely different thing with my heart.  My mouth was saying God I don’t have words to tell you how wonderful you are so please listen to my heart.  But my heart was far from that.  I would have really preferred Him not to listen to my heart at that point in the evening because my heart was self-centered.  I had lost focus of why I was there. I’m thankful for His gentle nudge that drew me back into focus. 

My God reminds me time and time again that He doesn’t just want empty words.  He doesn’t just want me to sing on key (I would be in trouble if that was a requirement).  He doesn’t just want me to go through the motions.  That’s not what He cares about.  He isn’t there to see us perform.  He is present in our worship because of our hearts!  He desires to have our hearts close to Him.

I want to be able to ask God to listen to my heart and know that He is going to hear things that honor Him.  I pray that my heart will praise His name at all times.  I pray that when my heart loses focus that His faithful nudge will draw me back to focusing on Him! I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart will be pleasing in your sight O Lord my God; my redeemer!