Set My Heart Free

I began this blog as a Bible study tool, intending to study verses while asking God to show me who he is. It’s easy for me to go down my mental list of, “thank you for providing a home and material things, thank you for my good health, thank you for my family…” Those are all great blessings, and I know God is pleased that I do thank him. However, this is suppose to be so that I can thank him and worship him for WHO he IS, rather than just a laundry list of THINGS he has DONE. But I need to learn to worship him just because he is God. I have learned an important lesson from a friend who has experienced great, heartbreaking tragedy: God is still God, even through the most unimaginably painful circumstances in our lives. God always was, always is, and always will be. And that’s plenty enough to deserve my constant praise and thanksgiving.

Today the verse I chose is Psalm 119:32, but there are a couple of versions I like that each speak to me a little differently:

“I pursue the way of Your commands,
for You enlarge my heart.” (HCSB)

“I run in the path of your commands,
for you have set my heart free.” (NIV)

Sometimes we want Christianity to be easy and convenient, and it usually isn’t. It goes against what the world expects us to do, and often it even seems weird. Many times, those on the outside looking in at us see Christianity as a list of rules and regulations - a list of all the things we aren’t suppose to do. “Why,” they ask, “would I ever want to limit myself from doing things that make me happy?” The answer is found in the above verse. Following Christ, obeying God, sets us FREE. We aren’t bound by a list of “can’ts” because the price for our sins has already been paid. But as we begin to do his will, we find joy. As we grow closer to him, we want to make him happy, and as we do those things that make him happy, he gives us even greater joy! It’s a wonderful cycle. When we follow his commands, he “enlarges our hearts” so that we can more fully take in the beauty and wonder of all he has created; so that we can care more deeply and have greater empathy for our friends and neighbors; so that we can begin to comprehend just a little bit of his great love for us. All those things give us greater joy, and that is why we want to pursue the path of his commands.