Patchwork Heart

"If you feel the Holy Spirit nudging you to take a step forward in this message today, please stand during the song and we will pray as a group."  The words from our chapel speaker were the kind that, a few months ago, would have had me immediately shuffling to my feet.  Today, however, something held me in my chair as my peers began to stand.

It wasn't anything about the sermon.  I agreed with everything the speaker had to say, found him articulate, interesting, and even moving.  I knew that God had worked a lot on my heart over the past year to believe his words and understand the topic he had just preached to us.  Still, I did not feel compelled to stand.

Despite this fact, my first thought was that I should.  As everyone around me stood up from their chairs, it seemed the logical, even right, thing to do.  But as I prepared to get up, God met me in a different way.  Stay, He commanded.  Immediately, I was surprised.  I had not heard anything from God this clearly in a long time.  Why would God want me in my seat when He could have me standing at the altar?

The answer came in what I imagined would have been the pained voice of a Father who's children simply do not seem to understand.  You ask me where I am, why I do not give you direction in your life.  Stop going through the motions, Daughter.  Stop pretending.  Step off the stage and meet with me.  

It was a view of my faith I had never opened my eyes to before.  In Psalm 51: 17, we read the well-known words, "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God will not despise."  Suddenly, I understood what the Psalmist meant by this.  I was trying to give God my heart, but it was covered in Band-Aids and patches.  I had bought into the lie that if only I pretended hard enough to hear Him, than maybe He would actually speak.

But God didn't want my fronting.  He didn't want a patchwork heart.  He wanted me as I honestly was: frustrated, tired, and even a bit angry with His lack of direction.  He didn't want me stand by my own strength to try and worship Him, He wanted me seated, but ready and waiting so that when the time came, His power would strengthen me to rise.

He wanted me to sacrifice everything I thought I should be and everything I pretend I was... because only then could I become who He really meant me to be.