A Heart After God's Own
The Lord is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion
(Psalm 116:5 NIV)
A tender, compassionate heart may often feel more like a burden than a blessing. Some people appear to go through life unaffected by the tragedies and calamities in the world around them, while others grieve alongside those in pain and feel their hurt and anguish at a personal level.
If the photograph of a koala bear, silhouetted in flames, trapped in a wildfire, holding its little paws out trustingly to the firefighter for rescue breaks your heart, know that it is God who carries that little bear to safety. The firefighter is His representative and angel on earth. Like you, He weeps over the injured baby possum and His heart breaks for the starving, shell-shocked child trapped in a war zone.
But a tender heart can lead to exhaustion, despair, and depression. The pain you see around you will weigh heavily on your mind and spirit if you let it. You cannot carry the grief and sorrow you witness all around you on your own. Ask His Holy Spirit to comfort and guide you every minute of the day. Lift those you see in pain to Him in prayer. And at night before you lay down to sleep, take that burden of pain to the cross and leave it in the capable hands of Christ. He will calm your mind and give you rest. Truly He gives sleep to those He loves (Psalm 127:2 ISV). In the morning you will wake up strong and ready to face the world again.
Though a tender heart may feel like a burden, it is, in fact, a beautiful gift from God. You have been given a heart that is truly one after God’s own. Life may, at times, seem harder because of it but through it you will receive the incredible blessing of learning to lean on Him every day for strength and peace.
His creation is groaning awaiting His return. But until that day when He returns to make all things new, He uses us as His hands and feet to bring solace to the world. So, thank the Lord for the tender heart He gave you and continue to comfort and care for His children and creatures.
Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God (Romans 8:22 NIV).
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:6-9 ESV).
