Lost/Found Heart
Isaiah 7:4 Say to him, ‘Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—
9…If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.’ ” (The Message)
To lose heart is to lose faith, and without a firm stand of faith, there will surely be a fall.
It’s so easy to become impressed by the flames and overwhelmed by the threats of being consumed. At one time it was God that was so impressive. It was His promises and His words that made everything else appear to be as it really was- meaningless. As His praise occupied the lips, the heart was securely kept in the fold of faith in His overcoming and prevailing power. Somehow, though, as the claims of disease, inability, lack, failure, and death began to be noticed and replayed on the lips, those things that were really just smoldering embers, incapable of consuming anything, were given the fuel they needed to fulfill their boastings. The heart that was once so comforted in the safety of God’s provision stepped off the Rock into a sea of tossing waves of confusion.
When the heart becomes lost it begins to wander in desperate search of solutions from other possible sources, none of which can establish any lasting stability or safety. America, since its brief encounter with faith just after 911 has since stepped further and further from the Rock into a most confusing plethora of conflicting solutions. From military to social solutions that may in themselves be divinely directed, there has been an increasing dependence on our own plans and strategies apart from that once unifying belief in the protection that only God could provide. This is reflective of how any straying of the heart from belief in God takes place. From the condition of total dependence, where He alone is known to be the solution, to seeking out other answers to the challenges of life, there is an inability to find any truly secure footing, and a fall is eminent. Any departure from a focused faith in the only God of victory is a path taken that leads to a place where standing is no longer possible.
While the direction of the eye’s focus will determine the heart’s location, a heart song will also rise as a direct indicator of the heart’s lost/found status. With various verses and refrains the wandering heart will expound upon the details of the enemy threats, while an expression of God’s ability over any opposition will be the natural response of the secured and standing heart. Where fear and coming failure are the themes of the wayward heart, there is a calm confidence, assurance, and boldness that pours from the heart firmly established on the Rock. Along with praise for the Greater One, there will be a declared defiance against the feeble threatening of a disarmed foe. Filled with the affirming words of our God concerning His overcoming ability in us, a proclamation of this truth and the end result will meet any challenge to the lordship of Jesus. Consumed by conviction that He will do what He’s promised in us, the heart will express this truth as a direct response to any threatening claims:
Isaiah 8:9 …
Listen, all you distant lands.
Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted;
propose your plan, but it will not stand,
for God is with us.
12 “Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it.
13 The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread,
14 and he will be a sanctuary;
