A while back, I wrote a book called The Heart-Shaped Life Devotional. The subtitle says: Choosing a life of steadfast love one day at a time. I wrote this book because we live in a harsh world that seems to have lost heart. Wherever we look, people are complex and violent, flawed at best and spiraling out of control at worst. So, what can we do?
My hope with the book was to offer a perspective of love, or at least a reminder that love could surpass the ugly challenges of life. We could choose to rethink our options when we’re angry or afraid or hopeless. I realize love won’t just suddenly appear and remove the misery that prevails and blackens the daily headlines. In fact, if I accept that God is love, I imagine love has to come down from heaven, because we can’t manufacture it here on earth.
Jesus said the two greatest commandments had to do with loving God and loving each other. This love idea then is designed with hope and purpose and possibility. We have God’s love, steadfast and true. He’s ready to help shape us up, turn us around, and open our eyes to see all that is good. Good is who you are. Good is what you offer to others. Goodness takes shape in your heart.
For anything to be shaped, it has to be soft and malleable. It can’t be so hard it would have to be utterly broken to shape it at all. Imagine the clay soft and warm, ready to be created into all kinds of beautiful things. That’s what your heart is like in the hands of God. That’s what He offers you each day. God searches the hearts of all of us, looking for ways He can help us become more compassionate, more hopeful, and more authentically lovable. He wants you to have more joy, more laughter, and more opportunity to be a blessing.
It’s time for all of us to shape up! We’re going to fail. We will fall down and have to get back up again. We will forget who we are; especially who we are in Christ. We are soft-hearted, beautifully shaped, joyfully enduring sons and daughters of the living, forgiving, and redeeming God. Let’s shape up together!
Here’s a little extra love to get started.