Open Hearts

Here's a little meditation inspired by T. Austin-Sparks. May it be light to you. Sparks says:

"We make the Christian life far too complicated - projecting our mentalities and our arguments, our contentions, and our demands for explanation, and what-not - and we are standing in our own light as we do so. The Lord cannot get on; that is all rubbish in the way. He needs a heart that is simple, in this sense, that there is nothing argumentative, querulous, awkward, about it. It is an open heart.

The trouble with so many of us is that we are so slow in our submission, our surrender, our giving way, our letting go. We will argue; we will demand an explanation. We go round and round this eternal circle, getting nowhere, because we will not let go - we just will not let go; and so we come back to the point from which we started a thousand times."

We should all realize that everything of the spiritual realm comes down to a matter of having the eyes of our hearts opened so that we may see Love. Until the eyes of the heart are opened, we stumble around blindly in darkness. There is no substitute for seeing. Revelation is the gateway to Love.

The act of seeing requires a special kind of heart - an open heart, as Sparks calls it. There is a fragment of Scripture that I have meditated on deeply in the past. It is from Matthew 5:

"Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8)

Pure hearts see Love. They are blessed. Sparks notes that the trouble with so many hearts is that they are not pure and not open. Closed hearts have a difficult time surrendering, giving up their way, and letting go. Reason, will and desire - elements of the soul - get in the way of the Spirit. As long as the soul is the driving force of the heart, it is impossible to walk in love.

May you find the strength to let go and possess a pure heart.

Agape,
Steve