A winged cherub is poised with a bow and arrow pointed at a heart. Your heart supposedly. A prevalent scene on many a Valentine’s card. Elegant heart-shaped boxes of mouthwatering chocolates, fragrant long-stemmed red roses, and vibrant bouquets of flowers, all fly off the shelves. Romantic candle-lit dinners, specially planned dates and proposals of marriage plug the restaurants and pour over social media.
Pulses thrum at the possibilities, adding a lightness to their step. Expectations are high; for some.
But maybe you want to stop up your ears and close your eyes. You have no expectations of romance, proposals, or possibilities to thrill your heart. Do your lips curve in bitterness, eyes narrow and a huff of irritation puff out, wishing the day would disappear.
Slogans ring out; “Love is in the air!”, “In the spring a young man’s fancy turns to love.”, “The perfect gift to say I love you.”
But expectations fall short. Loved ones forget, the gifts aren’t what you like, you don’t like the dinner, words come out wrong, and disappointment flares.
What is it our hearts really want? Is it a full belly, satisfied tastebuds, filled vases, or flowery promises? What is the ruling passion in it? Because even when you get the perfect day, the perfect present, or the perfect words, the next one may not be. Perfection is a hard taskmaster and cannot be sustained by a any mortal man. Or woman, for that matter!
In Jeremiah 17 we learn “The heart is deceitful above all things.”
Take time to examine what your expectations really are. What is it you want that pretty card to tell you? That you are wonderful, beautiful, the perfect woman? Do those flowers and presents puff up your sense of self-worth? And do those dinners, dates, and professions of undying love feed your desire to be the queen in someone’s life? These are not conscious thoughts, because we are experts at lying to ourselves.
If we allow the Lord to mine down far enough and expose what lies in our core, we will be shaken by what we find. A heart that lusts to be adored and glorified; to be on the throne, an all-knowing and all-powerful god. Independent and self-focused.
The irony is even if we got it, we would not be content. We would be “like a bush in the wastelands” and “dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.” Alone, thirsty, throats parched, craving life-giving water, but incapable of providing any for ourselves.
Jeremiah goes on to say “and beyond cure.”
We can’t cure our hearts. Nothing in this life can ever satisfy what we truly long for and were made for. Only a deep, growing abiding relationship with Jesus Christ can. And that requires humility, submission and obedience, through the grace of a loving and compassionate Lord. Not just once but over and over, because the vein of sin in our core, takes a lifetime to mine. But oh, the tears of joy and freedom that waters our thirsty souls with each whispered word of submission. Then we are promised to be “like a tree planted by the waters”, leafy, green, and fruitful; satisfied. We will be able to let go of putting unrealistic expectations on others and look to Jesus with the expectancy of finding all we need.
Sisters, as Valentine’s Day looms on the horizon let’s search our hearts for what is really ruling them. Go to our loving, compassionate Lord with what he shows you and ask him to help you release any unrealistic expectations found there. Then let us place them at the feet of the only One who deserves to be on the throne.
Be well!
Patricia