This is the journey of deliverance from the bondage of slavery to the promise of a new life as seen in heart of an average person living through the trip. This is our spiritual journey seen first in the Exodus and now in our hearts. Walk now in the same steps as the Israelites. Struggle as they did to find a right heart.
This heart within my chest has wept tears of sorrow at the oppression of slavery, crying out for a savior to deliver it from this bondage. It has pounded into my head as the heat and exhaustion overcame this frail body from hours of toil in the burning sun. The adrenaline rush of pain and fear has quickened its pulsating rhythm as the crack of the whip separates flesh from flesh in a demand to give more. This heart within me aches with sadness that this is all there is each day of this trapped life, which is ending here in a sandy existence one beating after another. There should be nothing in this heart but hurt, yet here there is still something else – hope. Burning within this heart is the hope that there will be release from this place, this sorrow, this toil. This heart is broken, rended by the years and tattered by the harshness, yet this heart is hopeful. There is hope for comfort and peace, for rest and freedom, but most of all for joy and love. These are but downbeats, empty silence between the pounding pressures of a life enslaved to cruel masters forcing this heart to bow in brokenness.
This is an angry heart, outraged that anyone should dare to make the load heavier on these bent old bones and tired muscles. Who is this man from the deep desert sands proclaiming boldly on my behalf, as if I had asked him? This rotten prince, a common criminal, where has he been these many years as we have continued to suffer under his father’s commands. He makes this heart grow fierce with fury and this blood boil within, he is the cause of our increased misery. He claims to speak both for the one true God and for me, but the trouble he is causing makes my heart seethe with resentment. Burning within this heart is hatred for anyone who would hurt it by upsetting those who oppress it making them weigh heavier upon it. Even the simplest of tasks made impossible, removing the binder of straw from mud, and a greater burden on me to pick for myself what little I can. This heart is enraged, ready to lay fault and proclaim wrongs done to it. There is rage and frenzy, storming wrath waking within, and this heart thunders each beat now with blame. This is the cacophony of emblazed anger, brought on by the ire of my master laid on me due to this man who would dare proclaim such brazen things.
Retribution has overcome this heart, stirred up now by miraculous signs and unexplainable events. Almost as if it had bleed itself into the waters as they changed from blue to red. My heart jumped within me to see the sight of so many frogs leaping forth from the depths and torturing them with fear. It is a heart that itches and twitches at very thought of biting mites covering chewing everywhere on those who have covered me with hurt these many years. Lurching at the very thought of the blackness of thousands of flies offset by the whiteness of their progeny. This heart now swells as the carcasses of their livestock and the sores upon their flesh do. Their suffering is long over due and this heart rains down vengeance with fire like the skies at the prophet’s command, smashing and burning their power over me. Like my heart once was now lays their land, stripped bare by the locusts gnawing at their crops and infesting their homes, just like they once chewed up my heart and taunted me at every beating. So darkness falls on this heart and these worthless people, a weight upon them as they were upon me. Such is as justice of a reckoning heart demands ~ more than a sense of fairness, it is indignation that drives me now. Each time each plague, they say our poor master hardened his heart, so break it I say ~ take from him as he once took from us, the smallest of hearts stopped from growing complete. Gathering courage in my heart, huddled in this hut, clothes gathered and ready to go, where I don’t know, anywhere but here. The blood covering over the entry to my home and my heart, the death’s knell crashing through the walls claiming the victims of their evil, scarring forever their lives as they have ours. We will take what is ours and what is theirs and leave them to suffer, quivering with weakness in full arrest drowning in the sand. This heart is full of revenge, set on settling the scores, and ready for retribution. Feel the pounding beat of the oarsman crying out for full speed ahead, the reckoning heart has come to the once pressed chest and payback shall be its sweet fulfillment.
Sinking inside me is this empty heart, trapped between what I once hated and certain death. My comfortable life of labor and undisturbed heart traded for this misadventure, here to fall at this water’s edge. I will return to that place I was, begging for reprieve, beating this breast trying to revive what little life I have. Here in this void that once held my hope, there is only fear creeping into an open hole left when the moment of change became real. Space becomes sparse and terror strikes its home as the pounding chariots are upon us, time is a few sands left to fall from this glass heart. The end feels so near. I fall here in this desert now, trapped between metal and sea, set adrift on this hard reality. On my knees as before, ready to die by the spear thrust through my side. Who is this man, this leader of men, who has brought me out here to meet my end? Where is the God you spoke of then? This heart is hollow, an abyss filled with fear, nothing inside it now but the fright of failure and loss of itself, horror cries out deep within. Silence, panic has stopped my heart, in this unfilled moment, it has sunk to the depths of these waters and cratered under the impending crash of the onslaught. Save me now!
Raised from the lowest point above all so they see, my heart parting from sorrow like now this reed sea. Blown by a mighty wind back into life, forcing the raging waters back from drowning my heart, it is alive again. Step by step, I go on solid dry ground and looking at the walls of water and creatures within, all around. A new journey we’ve begun this heart of mine and I, raised from death released from bondage, standing on the other shore. There rise now the waves crashing upon those who would pursue us as if the could tear from our chest this free heart. Here I am, looking back over the waves, looking forward into the sun, looking inward upon a newness of being. This heart is elevated, filled with wonder and astounded, ascending toward the heavens, bound for glory now; yet here within there is this disease that remains in mortal flesh, it is a heart that is still human, made imperfect by even one speck of sand.
Moaning and groaning, pressing from within, my heart aches for what it does not have. Surely its desires are normal, but for water, but for food, but for meat, but for rest, but for victory over these that demand from it more than it can bear. These people I cannot stand, they quarrel with each other and me, my heart argues back its plea, leave me be. Contention, strife, they throb through these muscles, every fiber now grumbles, especially this heart. Give me more than this. Where now then is this God who has promised so much? Let him show Himself that my heart might know His. Perhaps He will meet with my expectations, it can only wait so long. I would also like to mention not so briefly unto Him this insufferable sand that fills each crack and crevice as we wander in this land. This heart is dissatisfied, unfulfilled and wanting without patience or stillness, it mumbles out longing for what is to come, but now- NOW. Now is better than then, what is promised should be paid, and the presence is not present – when shall this heart be full. Beat now with some sound at all, wanting and waiting this heart becomes unsure of why it should continue without grumbling on about whatever it can.
So much for freedom and a heart that is free, He came, this Lord but I would rather He talked to you, not me. Fearsome and dreadful the sound of His voice, thundering and quaking the very mountain here before me – but my heart agreed to accept what he would say, so it shall. So many thou shalts and shalt nots to make a heart bound up so tight it cannot even beat. Why tell me more than once, twice, even three times not to do a thing? Ok, ok, I said I’d comply, but Lord tell the rest to this other guy. Then have him tell me every now and then, so my heart can have a moment away from you to comprehend. I count them as they’re told, 613 in all, plus these other rules too ~ these are straps for my arms, my head and my heart. There is freedom in this law, so you say, so we do, but it seems like so many of your commands make us slaves now to you. This heart is burdened, something new every day to follow you has become like work, baking in this sanding. Weighted down by Your demands and commands, by Your ways and will, by all You want from me and what little I have to give. This thud that bumps along with me is that heart pulling the cart filled with Your load, I will carry it bearing it until I cannot anymore.
On tempo, in order, by method and practice still, hear my heart plods on through a life of rules more than anything. Offer this, offer that, pray this, pray that, stand here, sit there, kneel and bow. This monotony has become my heart’s refuge, a protection from feeling even the slightest emotion for You or anyone. These rules of my heart make it what it is, an instrument whose tone is flat, and rhythm long drawn down. Wear it right, eat it right, each day, each night, each month, each year, until what ~ who cares. This is my religious heart, designed and made for You, fulfilling all I think You want even though it isn’t really true. Checking off the requirements, one by one until no one even knows what each one really means, just do them so they are done and my heart will be fulfilled. This clanging cymbal crashes, it is my heart and it cannot be fleet for I have given it over to the practice and doctrines of a god set forth in words and contained in my belief.
No longer do I care to force my heart to beat that song. No more will I carry your tune or try to get along. Oh no, that time is passed, for my heart has clogged with the sands of this life living by rules. My heart has closed, it will not open, for my neighbor? No! He is just like me, that is why I hate him so. There is nothing, nothing worth worrying over even where we’ll go. You say here in this desert my heart shall finally fall, because we wanted to stay and not go on. Is it my heart’s fault those men were 12 feet tall? Why even bring us out here if you knew this is how it would be? This is my hardened heart, just like that first master I knew back there, you know where ~ we were fine and well and may yet return there still. It is too proud to bend, too set to go along, too full of itself to empty out anything but this sand. Hear the crackle, drying in sun, my heart is a rock that will not bring forth a spring, no matter how hard you strike it.
Ah but I have considered your ways, they are better than any other and my heart is wise because of Your Word placed there within. Your yoke upon my heart crafted specifically so that it would rest gently and no burden there impose. This heart of stone torn from my chest and replaced by You come in the flesh. Christ has my heart, singing within me this eternal song. How can you forgive me a sinner, whose heart wanders to and fro? For I now understand, you’ve always held it in Your hand. Sometimes firmly, and others loose, but always there. And like your heart on that night, in the garden there, my heart aches with pain at what you should endure on my behalf. My heart breaks as yours does on the cross, crying for us and out to the Father, as your earthly heart stopped its work in death. Only briefly though, till rising to resound the song of victory as it beat again across these ages until Your coming reign. Then the sands of time shall cease and all hearts shall be fulfilled, some in grace and glory, some in judgment still. This is my renewed heart, thankfully filled now with grace and joy, given by You through Your sacrifice. A heart that suffers without anger or resentment, that does not fear or grumble but is elevated, that is not burdened, hardened, religious, or rebellious; instead it is Yours, it is renewed. Now that quiet voice of Your Spirit speaks through all the noise to still my heart and hear within from You.
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