Heart Exercises

After meeting with a dear friend Patty this morning to discuss life's happenings, it's been on the forefront of my mind to be conversational with the Lord. Did you know the Lord wants you to hear Him more than you want to hear Him? I don't know about you, but I wanna hear Him a lot a lot a lot, and I've had a hard time trusting the Spirit is really in me. That's something I've struggled with for months, but I'm glad that God is gently walking me through that process of learning to listen and hear His voice, which (not)coincidentally sounds an awful lot like my own voice. Go figure!

I was recounting all the mini-revelations I had during that meeting while on a walk this afternoon. I realized I have a real hard time rejoicing for folks who have "what I want", and I put that in quotes because sometimes "what I want" and "what God's doing" are a little different, and the latter is always better, but that's another story for another day.

So I straight up asked Him, "God, why does it hurt me to see other people have these things? Why does it hurt to rejoice?"

And He answered, "Because it stretches your heart, and growing can be painful."

So simple, almost silly how simple and elementary it sounds. But I got to thinking about physical growth and exercise. There is of course growing pains - they simply happen because we are getting older, taller, bigger. They can't be avoided, really. They last for a bit, and next thing you know, you're 6 inches taller.

And then there's intentional exercise. We want to get stronger muscles, more flexibility, more endurance, we want to grow healthier. If we want to see results, we must put in work, put in time. Our muscles will ache and our lungs will burn. But the more we do, our bodies adapt, they strengthen and acclimate, and the exercises don't seem as strenuous or impossible as they did 3,6,9 months ago. We have the ability to press on harder and longer without growing as weary.

My spiritual heart is like a muscle that needs to be strengthened, it needs to be stretched. It was getting a little inflexible, a little stagnant. It was deteriorating. I feel like God told me, "Adrienne, the more you rejoice with others, especially when it hurts, your heart is growing bigger, stronger, more like Mine. The more you do it, the easier and truer it becomes." Also, how good is it that the Spirit is our strength to rejoice? Definitely not in my own strength to rejoice when I'm just not feelin' it. I usually just want to have a pity party and invite all my friends.  Not to mention, our trust in the Lord for His good and perfect will over our life expands exponentially when we do this - bonus!

I know that's such a plain and simple thought, but it encouraged my spirit and felt prompted to share. I hope it blesses your growing heart today!