“When we pray and nothing changes, many times as believers we use the outcome as an occasion to alter our theology to match our experience. When we do this, we stop pressing forward in faith to find out why the natural world didn’t line up with what we expected.”- Christa Black Gifford
“I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”- Ezekiel 11:19 (NIV)
In Chapter 5 (“The Undivided Heart”) of Heart Made Whole, Christa Black Gifford describes the therapeutic technique of Father Andrew Miller. Father Miller, an Anglican priest, encountered cases that modern psychology – and even Christians – labeled as hopeless. Thus, Father Miller studied, prayed, and tirelessly pored over the Scriptures. He determined to find tools to help his clients know freedom and deliverance from their horrific earthly chains. Like the tortured demoniac in Mark 5 regaining his right mind after he encountered the mercy and love of Jesus.
Most noteworthy, no matter how life’s punches tatter a heart, Jesus has never faced an impossible case. Therefore, Father Miller believed Jesus’ promise that we’d do greater things than He did (John 14:12). As a result of clocking more than 4,000 clinical hours loving broken hearts, Father Miller uncovered a common thread in all his patients. Every person on the brokenness continuum possessed the same primary components in their heart: the emotional heart, the guardian heart, and the function heart.
Consequently, God revealed and unpacked these parts of the heart to Father Miller. Hence, he started seeing many miracles in his counseling practice. For his patients’ broken and divided hearts encountered Jesus – Someone more powerful than their pain.
Finally, Christa observes, “God’s intention for your heart has always been to bind it up, making it undivided and whole.”
Today’s question: What, if anything, keeps you from pressing forward in faith? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Your emotional heart – connected to your pain”
