"Paper Hearts"

I read this post the other day and found it very thought provoking, so now I'm sharing it with you!!

"Everyone is probably familiar, in one way or another, with the method of cutting a heart out of a piece of paper. It’s really only four simple steps:

1. Fold piece of paper in half
2. With folded side in, trace ½ heart shape
3. Cut on line, making sure not to cut along fold
4. Open and enjoy

Simple. Still, it always amazes me that no two hearts ever come out exactly the same. This is because they are handmade. Handmade items, even replicas, are never exactly alike. Some variation always exists, no matter how minuscule. Like paper hearts, we as individuals are handmade, handmade by God himself. Even God never cuts out two hearts that are exactly the same. We are all a unique expression of Him. This can make understanding one another more complicated, but also far more intriguing and exciting than if they were all the same. We each offer our own variation of who God is. This couldn’t be more evident to me, than in the variations that exist in my own kids. In them I see pieces of their daddy, I see pieces of me, but even more clearly I see a completely one-of-a-kind little person. They each have their own unique thoughts, perspectives, and abilities. This is exactly how our Father views each of us. In fact, it’s how He intended us to be.
I attend LCBC and for the past two weeks the message has been centered on, what I recently heard described as, the Jesus Creed. The creed comes from Mark 12:29-31, which reads...

29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord.
30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’
31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

Sure it sounds simple, but application is always a different story. So what does it look like to love God and love others, what does that mean? These past few weeks I’ve really been challenged by the reality that no handmade being can do so in exactly the same way. Which means this creed is not limited to one expression of love, because God is not limited to one expression of love. Rather, this is an opportunity for us as unique individuals; cut out by Him, to display the many unique ways He loves. However, learning to be true to the way you were created and operate freely as yourself can be difficult. We are bound by our fears, for me specifically I’m often bound by my fear of what others will think of me. What if my heart isn’t the right shape, color, size, what if, what if, what if. All too often I find myself holding back God’s love because of my fears. My desire for myself outweighs my desire to be true to the heart God cut out for me. Likewise, learning to value and appreciate the uniqueness of the hearts of others can be just as complicated, especially if their heart operates in a way that is unfamiliar or different from our own. This has also been a struggle of mine, learning to let God and others love me outside of my comfort zone, and in accordance with their heart’s unique message. I’m realizing that in order to see the many shades of His colorful love and appreciate the unique hearts in which it is birthed, I have to allow His grace to be the translator between hearts that speak different languages.

By His grace and our willingness to be true to ourselves we can encounter His love in deeper ways. The same happens when we allow others the grace to be true to the heart He has given them. Maybe your heart is long and narrow, or short and wide; maybe it is tiny, or ripped on one side, even lopsided. Whatever its appearance, it has a unique message to deliver, one that only it can say and in exactly the way it was made to say it."

Susan Ferrari

.: DON'T CONNECT THE DOTS :.

How many of you have completed a connect the dot puzzle? You know what I'm talking about...those puzzles that have little numbers or letters with dots all over the page. The activities that helped us learn our alphabet, how to count to 100 or revealed a picture of a bible story?? Well what if I showed you a connect the dot puzzle and asked you to tell me what the final image would be WITHOUT connecting a single dot? Some images would be easy to pick out, but the more numbers or letters that are added, the harder it would become. OK now what if I told you that there was a connect the dot puzzle of your life? Interesting thought isn't it.

OK lets take this one step further. Looking at your puzzle, what do you see? Is it neat and organized with dots that are easy to connect? Or maybe your puzzle is full of clusters of dots here and there? Or maybe your puzzle is ONE. BIG. DOT in the center of the page? Like I said before, this puzzle represents your life. More specifically this puzzle represents the times you've heard God's call/whisper and obeyed.


Take a look at the puzzle again, what do you see? Has God been working in your life? Have you been listening to His voice? Do you know His voice of truth among all the other voices SCREAMING for your immediate attention? Maybe you've started thinking about all the times you've heard and disobeyed...STOP! That's your enemy attacking. He knows your weaknesses better than you do, but he's a liar and can't be trusted. What I need you to do is focus on your puzzle. Your job is NOT connecting the dots. God's already done that! Your job is NOT determining what the puzzle will look like in the end. God's already knows! Your job is NOT critiquing the artist. See Romans 9:22-33 The Message.


Romans 9:20-33 (The Message) Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?" Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well:

I'll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
I'll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, "You're nobody!"
they're calling you "God's living children."
Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:
If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
and the sum labeled "chosen of God,"
They'd be numbers still, not names;
salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn't count us; he calls us by name.
Arithmetic is not his focus.

Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:
If our powerful God
had not provided us a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
like Sodom and Gomorrah.

How can we sum this up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their "God projects" that they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:

Careful! I've put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can't get around.
But the stone is me! If you're looking for me,
you'll find me on the way, not in the way.


Your job is to focus on one. dot. at. a. time. In other words...listen, obey, trust, die to self, let the Spirit take control. Don't take over your life and miss out on what God has planned for you like Israel missed it. God shouldn't be the rock that we stumble upon on this journey of life. He should be the rock we cling to, the rock we build our life on.


Who's connecting your dots?