A Total Eclipse of the Heart

Do you remember the 80s love ballad, “Total Eclipse of the Heart”? If I’m honest with you, I still listen to it through my Pandora station every week. Man, the 80s were a great decade for love music. If you’re like me, I bet you’ve heard this song hundreds of times in a variety of settings. It’s the classical love song, giving us a story as we hear it. It’s dramatics in tone, expression and words leave an imprint that still make it a popular song today.

Yet there’s truth to this idea for us in our walk with God. It may not be, a total eclipse of the heart but we definitely need to guard our heart throughout our lives.

“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”

Proverbs 4:23

Think about what this verse says. Guard your heart, for it determines the course of your life. This is massive! I’ve discovered even though I love God, I still have to guard my heart every single day. This is in regards to my own thoughts, relationships, and to the things that I lead. Faith doesn’t remove this truth from our walk with God. However, it’s our faith that can empower us to guard our heart through God’s word.

This is so important because the Bible says, that our heart is “deceitful and wicked.” (Jeremiah 17:9). King David himself prayed, “create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit in me.” (Psalms 51:10.)

These references and more speak to this truth in our lives. We must guard our heart because it impacts everything. I’ve noticed over time that one of the greatest attacks against us is disappointment. This can cause more damage to our faith, our confidence, and our trust in God like nothing else. It’s subtle, deceiving and deadly. In fact, it says that we are justified in our disappointment; therefore, leading us down a road of doubt and unbelief that robs our hope in Jesus. I’ve seen this firsthand as people change their whole believe system in God from disappointment. The tragedy is, this change in their beliefs lead them away from God, not closer to Him. I’ve seen others begin to distrust the word of God, to pull away from community, and to rationalize their life in their own mind. This is dangerous because there is always limitations in our ability, leaving us unsatisfied and incomplete.

This is why we need Jesus!

He does what we can’t do. He goes where we can’t go. He touches what we can’t touch. We have to remember, we are finite He is infinite! He’s a genius and we are not. So guarding our heart is paramount because if we don’t, it leads us down roads that hurt and trick us out of God’s plan.

Are you disappointed about something today?

If so, there’s no judgment, as all of us have faced this many times over. The issue is, what will we do with it. When we face disappointment the best thing to do is to give it to God. The more we harbor it and the more we hold onto it, the more it can take us away from hope. Remember, this is subtle and it moves slowly to where one day we look up, and we are somewhere we never thought we would be. No one is exempt from this as life does not discriminate but the good news is, God does not discriminate either!

That means, He has the power to heal our disappointment. He has the ability to bring good out of the bad. He has the power to take a total eclipse of our heart and bring it into a place of closeness with Him that cannot be shaken. It doesn’t matter what we’ve gone through. The good news is, Jesus is for us and nothing can stop our God.

I encourage you today, let God have your disappointment. Guard your heart with diligence and let Jesus be the healer of all that you’ve gone through. Continually give Him your disappointment and give Him your heart through prayer. I have found, when I pray these things out loud and give them to God, it releases my burden and frees my soul. It may not be solved right then, but at least I am relieved and freed of the weight. This is what God can do and when you and I give Him our disappointment, He’s able to bring good out of it and cause us to come into victory.

A total eclipse of the heart, maybe for good or maybe not; however, with God nothing is impossible.

Let God’s word remain true to you. Read it every day, pray it every day and believe it every day. Don’t let anything shake your faith and while that’s easier said than done, He is able to keep us through it all!!

He’s the same yesterday, today and forever.

Have a great week and the best is yet to come.

Guarding my heart the best I can,
PD