When I was a little girl, I knew some things for sure. I knew these things deep in my gut. I had no bullet list of reasons to persuade you with, but I knew them, and there was nothing you could do to persuade me otherwise.
One thing I knew was that I was good. I made mistakes, but deep down, I trusted my heart was good. I knew when I wasn’t good, I still wanted to be. If you’d asked me then to describe how I knew I was good and loving, I would have told you this: Well, my name starts with a K and Kmart and Circle K have red K’s. Red is the color of hearts and hearts mean love, so I am love.
Makes sense, right? Not to my left brain, or yours probably, but maybe that doesn’t mean I was loony. In my young mind, it was very simple and it was enough. I could trust things even when other people didn’t agree. Do you remember when you thought with both your heart AND your brain? We’re taught not to trust our hearts, and rely only on our brains, but I think God gave us both, much like He gave us two feet. If we choose not to use one, or use one very little, we will stumble through life. When did you start needing to have a defendable, explainable, logical reason for everything you did or believed?
Jesus didn’t. People asked Him to give an explanation all the time and He didn’t bother. Rather than agreeing to defend Himself, He’d ask them a question. He lived His version of goodness – which looked weird and wrong to some – and let whoever think whatever. That’s freedom.
Trusting God in a bone-deep way, allowed me to believe I was good, even when some grown-ups didn’t agree. Now that I am a grown-up, I get caught up in the things I do wrong, and end up feeling I am wrong. I censure myself for being inconsiderate, unrealistic, wasteful, a push-over, vain. When that happens, I try to say, “I’ve been a lot of things, yes. But the true me is still here and at the very beginning of me, the way I was created, I am none of those things. I am loved and I am good.”
Satan is the accuser. Please don’t sing along with him. When you’re feeling wrong because you do some things wrong, try putting your hand on your heart and saying, “I have a good heart.” Jesus gave it to you. He took your stony one and gave you a live, pumping, soft heart. And it is good.
