Change my heart, O God
Make it ever true
Change my heart, O God
May I be like You
You are the potter, I am the clay
Mold me and make me, this is what I pray
Change my heart, O God
Make it ever true
Change my heart, O God
May I be like You.....
God has called a change in me, as I imagine you have felt also at some time in your life. A time when you feel a push from above, an unsettling feeling, a need for deeper intimacy with God and with the true self God created. I have felt that and have learned to recognize it quickly, but that doesn't mean the journey to change is any easier.
I am coupling with Joanna Weaver, the author of Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World and Having a Mary Spirit on this journey to transformation. A challenging series of books that help to challenge a woman's faith and strengthen her relationship with her God. I felt the pull to pick Having a Mary Spirit last week and immediately felt at home....not a comfortable home, but rather a realization that this is where I am in my life....trying to be the Martha when I should be falling at Christ's feet as a Mary Spirit would.
I have studied through these two books in the past and have grown in many ways.....and it's time to do it again. This time, however, is not the same. This change will be different.........I don't know how different or what that means, but I know I will go through this book and gain something much different than the first time.
How many of us women find ourselves trying to be perfect, thinking that is what God is calling us to be. Because, of course a Godly woman would look a certain way on the outside right? Involved in ministry, giving of her time to all charity and community service, while also keeping a clean and organized household, making great changes at work, and somehow also finding time to have a strong and intimate relationship with God......we all want to hear...."How does she do it?" Wrong! There is no perfect picture of a Godly woman. A Godly woman is one that above all follows God and his calling.
But I see these women all over the place with perfect lives and perfect jobs, in the media all the time, changing lives with charity and social work......we dislike these women don't we. In our efforts to become "perfect woman" we find ourselves falling farther and farther from our true self....feeling guilty because we failed and traveling farther and farther from the woman God is truly calling us to be. We have a case of the "whitewashed-tomb syndrome" as Joanna Weaver calls it. "The dangerous belief that we can somehow make ourselves presentable to God through our own human effort." She goes on to correlate this with the Pharisees and their attempts at self-induced holiness. Jesus also had something to say not he matter: " Ignore the outside, no matter how brightly it shines. It's what is inside that counts."
I by no means that the answer of how to be the "perfect woman" or a "Godly woman," but I hope by the end of this transformation process to have some answers.
I'm reminded by Joanna that change is NOT easy. Praying "change my heart, O God" is not like giving up my earthly soul to God and when He has changed it to His liking will return it in the mail. No...change is not passive, but active. As an avid runner, I correlate it to the feeling of getting out of bed knowing the run is going to be hard, but knowing that after a few weeks there will be a change and my body will build it's endurance and the benefits are long-lasting.
I will leave you with a quote from Joanna Weaver in her book Having a Mary Spirit- one that haunts me to my very core. We can change "because we have a SAvior who understands that we are caught in a human body of contradictions. Wanting God one minute and chasing the world the next. Desiring holiness, yet settling for compromise. Hungering for the divine, yet willing to trade it for a bowl of stale porridge and a nap in the shade."
Be ready, a change is coming and if you feel God is calling a change in you -> pick up this book and let God change you also!
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