"If once the burden and the pressure come upon us and we are not in the worshiping attitude, it will produce not only hardness toward God but despair in our own souls" -- Oswald.
How many times have burdens and pressures created despair in me -- and, if I am honest, hardness toward God, as well? Hardness toward God manifests itself in my life as a sort of fatalism. God's gonna do what God's gonna do, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. A cold view of sovereignty that does not acknowledge his plan as a loving one. Neither does it do much to motivate intercession.
"A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to our Lord" -- Oswald.
Oswald's words to me: Stop grieving God. Find your heart. It is in there somewhere. Give it to God. He will hold it ever so gently and protect it ever so fiercely, and your relationship with him will grow into a living thing. At this point in your life, you cannot afford to worry about anything else. Tears at work, failure, writing a book, winning approval and recognition, offending people -- these are mere trifles compared to the welfare of your heart. You have energy enough for this thing only. Find your heart. From there, life will grow and change. You will be able to love others and begin to have Christ's view of them, but first things first.
I think, perhaps, the way to the heart is strange. Tonight, at our church's Maundy Thursday service, my daughters washed my feet, and as they washed my feet, they spoke words of affirmation to me -- what they loved and admired about me. Their words, their actions, did not go to my ears or my mind; they touched my heart. I washed the feet of an elderly woman to whom I have only spoken passing greetings at church, and in the act, I felt such tender compassion for her. Again, my mind was circumvented, and I had a sense of my own heart.
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