Do not harden your hearts

The theme of Hebrews is Christ is greater than any angel, priest, or old covenant institution; thus each reader, rather than leaving such a great salvation, is summoned to hold on by faith to the true rest found in Christ and to encourage others in the church to persevere.

Starting in chapter three of Hebrews, the author who we do not know, writes about how Jesus is greater than Moses. He says that Moses is the servant in God’s house, and Jesus is the son of the house in essence. And we are his house, if we choose to be. He built us, resides in us.

Then he goes on to say in verses 7-15

A Rest for the People of God

⁷ Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
⁸ do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
    on the day of testing in the wilderness,
⁹ where your fathers put me to the test
    and saw my works for forty years.
¹⁰ Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
    they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ As I swore in my wrath,
    ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

¹² Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. ¹³ But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. ¹⁵ As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

You have a choice to make. To Be Open.

Open your eyes and see him. I mean hello have you looked around you. His beauty is all around you. This screams of an intelligent creator, it could not have just happened.

You have been asked to open your ears. He is calling out to you. He is whispering things to you, that He loves you, cares for you, and knows you and STILL loves you.

And now you have a lot of knowledge, and you have a choice, you can either open your heart to Him, or continue to harden it.

Just as the author of Psalm said, who originally penned these words from Hebrews, will you be like your fathers, who SAW everything that God did for forty years, parting the Red Sea, bringing manna from the sky (food falling down or appearing, whichever it is amazing), the plagues in Egypt. The water out of the rock. So many things they watched and their hearts were hardened toward God.

The opposite of hard is… Soft. That is right. So things can get inside of them. Take this apple for instance, I can jab a fork into it, take this rock I cannot.

God wants to be in our lives, But the condition of our hears is up to us, will we allow him in, will we open the door?

We have a choice, it is either to open up to him, or harden our hearts.

I know what you are thinking though, you are thinking, “Erica, it is hard to open my heart, it is not that easy.”

And I would say I totally get it, it isn’t always easy.

Side note, I was writing this lesson and thinking about opening doors to Jesus and how it seems so easy. But then I thought of all those doors that are not easy to open.

I hate when doors have a pull handle, but really you have to push it, so you look like an idiot trying to pull open a push door, or when they keep one side locked, but not the other side, why, for your own amusement, and to humiliate me, but for real I hate that.  Or those times you think its going to be easy to open the door and it isn’t so your arm just kind of buckles under you and you end up running right into the door. It is not always easy to JUST open the door.

I believe one thing the Israelites lacked when they were marching through the desert was a connection to their heart, yes they SAW all of these things that God did, these amazing things, but they never let them penetrate into their heart.

So when life would come they would be thrown all around, not holding fast or standing firm on their hope in Christ as it says in verse 6. “If indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” I am reading through Exodus right now and it is crazy to me how quickly they doubt God’s presence after he just showed up in an amazing way. They had people around them with unbelieving hearts leading them astray. They allowed sin to creep in and cause them to doubt God, and in turn it hardened their hearts even more.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to continue to be like one of the Israelites of old and harden your heart toward God? Forgetting everything you have seen and heard him do and say? Or are you going to open your heart toward him, allowing him to come in and change your life.

This is not easy, again, it is difficult. A lot of that is because our hearts are already locked up , so opening them is really difficult.

Opening up the heart, being vulnerable is scary, and intimidating. We do not naturally want to let people in. The real us is usually locked up. We have built these locks all around our hearts to protect them. The first lock went on when one of our parents left, or was far less than what a parent is meant to be. The next lock went on when someone we trusted hurt us, they took advantage of us. Another lock went on when that boy or girl broke our heart and it turns out they didn’t care about us at all. The next lock went on when we really wanted that position, or that team or ____________ that we were hoping for and it didn’t work out, so now we are telling ourselves to not even hope for anything at all. Because it is better than getting hurt. Another one goes on when people say we are ugly, worthless, and will never amount to anything. Another when your friends, who you thought were really good friends, start some bogus rumors, or even worse, they share your secrets with everyone. And we think I knew I shouldn’t have trusted them.

And now our heart looks a lot like this. Chained up and locked up.

So now our heart is impossible to open.

I am right there with ya,  exhausted with hustling with the world. With trying to make it in this world, by this world’s standards. Ya see I am not skinny minnie, I never have been I was a 9 lb baby, okay.  I hated that I just couldn’t be like the girls that wear smalls, and do not even get me started on those that wear extra small. It just wasn’t fair. I was sick of my friends using me, and talking bad about me behind my back, and literally cutting me out of their lives for months at a time. I hated myself, and blamed myself for where I was and who I was. So one day it came to a point where I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was sick of not having value, feeling worthless, running after attention from anyone who would give it to me. My chains and locks that I had been building for years were rattling, my heart couldn’t take it anymore. It wanted freedom. My heart wanted to be free.

I finally came to a place where I had to give my lock to Jesus, I had to let him in. I had to surrender, chains and all at his feet, and hope he would take me the mess I was and all. I picture crawling to him with these chains in my hands, begging him to take it all. And he looks at me with the most compassionate face, reaches out his hand, says, “Daughter, I have always been here.” And he did. I have never looked back at that person I was before I finally feel to my knees before him. NEVER

I finally chose to stop hardening my heart and to open it. Chains, locks, and all laying it at his feet.

So what is it for you? You have a choice just as I did, harden your heart or open it. You have locks and chains around your heart too. They are keeping you from opening your heart. What are they?

Opening up your heart to God is not a one time thing. It is a daily thing. It is continually allowing him in everyday. Because as we have seen with the Israelites life can creep in, sin can creep in and harden our hearts, but if we come back to him each time, our heart will remain soft.

¹² Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. ¹³ But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 

Be around people that also want to put Jesus first. The people you are around matters.

I’m a four

Photo cred: Mady Haight 

Continuing the discussion about becoming more self-aware. click here for the first one.

I have been hearing a lot about the Enneagram, a personality test basically. Well actually I have been hearing about it a lot from 1 person in particular, Annie F Downs. Then a few of my friends have gotten into it as well.

There are 9 types.

I have taken the test. But also heard that you should read about them too in order to truly get an idea about your type. Well I am not an expert, but I am reading a lot about it. I listened to Annie interview people associated with all the numbers and felt that I was as a 4. So I read about a 4 in The Road Back to You, and feel as though someone is in my brain. This is what people have said is an indication of finding your number. You feel too seen and it feels weird. These things that we actually try to keep hidden are now out in the open. And that is how it feels while reading the 4. When I listened to all the interviews I definitely could relate to bits from everyone; which they say is true. But there is one number that you feel stronger towards. Reading the 4 was hard,  because it resonated so much it felt intrusive. Almost as if someone was invading my privacy.

Some things that stuck out to me about the 4 were not enjoying unsparingly optimistic people. Feeling strongly almost all the time. Being dictated by my feelings. Melancholy is a dear friend of my mine and it is not a scary place but comfortable. It is easier for me to feel sad than happy.

Sad songs have always been my favorite. I feel as though they emote more than a happy song. Even more I have come to realize that I don’t think happiness is a true emotion. I know it is, but I feel like it will leave, so I don’t allow myself to feel it, or I feel like it’s always tainted. This is something I am working on because it’s not the most healthy. I should be able to indulge in happiness fully submersed in it without the fear of it leaving. I also find that I never want to hear that everything is awesome from someone, I want the Real which I think means the hard, difficult stuff. And for some reason I think authentic means deep and sad, not happy. It seems slightly twisted, but very much the truth. (Don’t get me wrong I am happy from time to time)

I used to always play the victim, which  is a 4 thing when they are unhealthy, I still have to fight that urge. I actually have to ask myself, “Do you think they were trying to hurt you?” Which most often I can answer no.  I used to use this, playing the victim, to manipulate others into giving me attention. I would put myself out during group situations in the hopes of people bringing me in. Which more often than not backfired and I felt horrible about myself afterwards. Very self deprecating. Putting myself down all the time.

I have grown a ton and become healthier. But I do think the Enneagram has helped me to see that a lot of my thoughts and feelings are not unique to me, but others have them too. Which is nice to know I’m not, ya know, just difficult.

The four is known as the Romantic, which is kind of funny because I do not think that I am romantic at all. But then I think about it and I very much desire romantic things. I imagine them happening to me, they do not very often and usually that is because I downplay them and cringe at cheesy things, so of course someone is not going to think that I like sappy, thought out, acts. But I secretly do. I am just afraid to voice it, because I have been let down a lot in my life, so I pretend I do not like them so I do not get letdown, but I do like them. This is also why I do not get super excited about things in my life. I mean do don’t get me wrong, I do get excited, but if I can get hurt it is much harder for me to get my hopes up. The four is also known as the individualist. They value being unique and different. When your focus is to be unique and different all the time you can become pretty self-absorbed. I know we all are at times, but I feel I struggle a lot with selfishness.

I also think that I fantasized or idealized things in my life. So nothing really in life lives up to that and I think it must be wrong, whatever the it is. Job, guy, opportunity. 4's always think something is missing in their life. I think this is my fantasizing. Because it doesn't live up to the fantasy, then it is missing something and must not be right so I need to get out of it. I am really working on not allowing this to ruin good things in my life.

Fours are a bit more creative, and have maybe felt as though they never really fit in or belonged. I have seriously felt this way my entire life, as though I was born at the wrong time or do not quite fit with people. So it was nice, again, to know I am not the only one and not crazy. Which kind of goes against wanting to be original, but ya know I am a conundrum.

If you’d like to learn more, read up on it, or take a quiz to find your type please check out these resources. The enneagram is simply another tool in better understanding who you are, your strengths and vices and how to work through them. I am using this through a Gospel lens, And believe God is using this to help change me for the better!!!

Resources- The Road Back to You- Book

Your Ennegram Coach website

Enneagram Institute.https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/

Why do I do this?

(Photo cred: Mady Haight)

I remember in university beginning to not like how I reacted or felt in many different situations. This brought on a desire to better understand why I reacted or felt the way I did. The majority of these came from my upbringing, but recently I have found that I was born with some of these natural tendencies as well.

Since then I have desired to be more self-aware. I have had this desire because I want to be better in my relationships. At first it was for me and my own health, which is very true. And if I am healthy then I can also have healthier interactions with others and those interactions do not need to send me down a spiral. Actually if I am healthy mentally, I do not have to give them the power to affect me at all. I began this process by questioning the things I did, why I did them, what I was hoping to gain from them. I questioned the thoughts I had and why I went to that place with that thought instead of another place.

This first came to the surface when I would not give people the benefit of the doubt when they did something wrong. Even deeper than that I would negatively talk to myself about getting my hopes up and thinking this time would be different. I knew when those thoughts came that they were not healthy and I needed to do something about them. I actually started my counseling journey in that moment. Those appointments helped me to better bring my thoughts and actions into the light.

Every time I do not like how I am feeling about something I know that I need to question what I am feeling and why to get to the underlying issue. This is what helps me to better understand it and be able to grow. All of this is done with grace and with the aim of becoming more and more like Jesus. Not simply so that I can be better for this life, and to make my relationships better. It is with the end goal of allowing God to transform me into who I am supposed to me.

If you find yourself not enjoying how you are feeling then start by better understanding who you are and why you do the things you do. Get to the root of the issue. All of the behaviors and the thoughts are symptoms of underlying issues. Get the root and you can start to build a new foundation.

One of my roots was that guys cannot be trusted and I should not expect them to. This stemmed from my past. I had to realize that not every guy is the same and I need to open my heart to trust them, even if they let me down from time to time. Which they will. I find that with Jesus all the time. He loved people unconditionally, he did not care what he received back. I cared too much what I received back, it was always completely selfish.

I want to be better for those around me and I want to be better for me. What about you?

Stay tuned for how I am furthering my journey!!!