My heart is a rubber band. Not a fresh new rubber band recently purchased from your local office supply store, but it is that old dry-rotting rubber band that you can find on your grandmother’s nightstand, or in the tool box of a 1970’s Ford F100 with the rusty hood and the blue exhaust smoke. It is not a thick well reinforced rubber band that you would use to hold together your precious documents, but it is the kind of thin well-worn rubber band that you might use to hold together those impossibly old pencils with the hard crusty ineffective erasers that only smear your hand-written typing errors. But my heart is not a stable rubber band used primarily for one purpose like holding pencils together, but it is in constant duress like the rubber band that finds itself in the hands of a curious five year old who is dedicated to determining the breaking point of his new old stretchy toy. For an extra set of hands he recruits his friend to play as well so as to maximize stretchiness in all directions. It would seem that it is but a matter of moments before my heart snaps and two five year olds fall on their bottoms, giggle, and toss my useless heart to the side in favor of a matchbox car or a slug or something less flexible but much more durable.
My heart is stretched in so many different directions by so many different stretchers. My heart is stretched from category to category of matters that seemingly require my whole heart. Even within each category my heart is stretched in endless directions. I want to put my heart into certain activities, pour my heart into certain people, but really I’m only affording another hand-hold for stretching it in a different direction. Sometimes for fear that it will finally snap I try to control my fickle, feeble, far-stretched heart by winning it back from some of the stretchers, but it is usually no more effective than a band-aid on a bullet wound. Most of the time I try to ignore the stretching and appease the stretchers, some of whom do not even know they are stretching, but I believe they were asked by other stretchers to help them stretch that which they do not know they are stretching—they are simply doing a favor for a stretching friend (but this might be a stretch). Some stretchers enter into the stretching circle fairly innocently, but I let them stretch the hardest. And just when I think my heart is stretched to the absolute limit a new stretcher arrives, or a stretcher who was dormant for a time begins stretching again.
Some of the stretchers are good, but some of the stretchers are bad. Some of the stretchers are particularly violent and malicious with their stretching. Many of the stretchers mean no harm, but many of them want nothing more than for my stretchy heart to snap. It is the violent stretchers that, though I often try to fend them off, find the weakest most dry-rotted hand-holds and with strong arms stretch with the most ferocity. There are other stretchers that disguise themselves as non-stretchers. Under the impression that they mean to heal and not stretch I allow them the greatest hand-holds, and when I least expect it they stretch even more violently than all of the others. It is from the malicious, violent, deceptive heart-stretchers, from whom I have been made free, who do the most damage.
‘Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is in the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.’ The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? ‘I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.’ Like the partridge that gathers a brood that she did not hatch so is he who gets riches but not by justice; in the midst of his days they will leave him, and at his end he will be a fool. A glorious throne set on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who have forsaken you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water. Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise. Behold, they say to me, ‘Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come!’ I have not run away from being your shepherd, nor have I desired the day of sickness. You know what came out of my lips; it was before your face. Be not a terror to me; you are my refuge in the day of disaster.[1]
When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in the heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.[2]
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.[3]
Lord Jesus, break and mend my fickle, feeble, far-stretched heart. I confess that I have entrusted my stretchy heart to those who are no more trustworthy than I, and that is no indictment on them as much as a plea for Your strength to invade my life so that I will trust You alone. My desire, oh Lord, is to be like a tree planted by abundant water, that grows and produces fruit and is not fearful in drought, because You are a fountain of living water. Heal my fickle, feeble, far-stretched heart oh Lord, and pry it from the hands of those who stretch it (the animate and inanimate), and make it your own. Dominate my heart Jesus, and may it be Your holy temple Holy Spirit. Father, You are my refuge, and though I was brutish and ignorant toward You, I am now continuously with You, because Your Holy Spirit has sealed my fickle heart with the guarantee of my inheritance at the return of Your Son. My God who could I possibly have in Heaven or on earth that is worthy of my heart but You Lord? You Lord are the strength of my heart and my portion even when my heart fails to be stretchy any longer. I can rejoice knowing that hope does not disappoint, the proof of which is the love that has been poured into my heart Holy Spirit, for which I am now grateful, and pray that I can now pour the love of Christ out from my heart on all who would stretch it. And instead of stretching my deceitful sick heart, by Your strength Lord may my healed heart lead them to Your strong heart. Please make my fickle, feeble, far-stretched heart a testimony to your steadfast, faithful, far-reaching love, most prominently displayed in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Amen.
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