Wellspring - it's a two-way thing!

I've been enjoying the virtual, online services that my friend in Nottingham has been broadcasting each Sunday.   They have stirred the embers and sparked my spirit back to life and I look forward to soaking in thoughtful words through songs, scriptures and sermons.   During a recent sermon my friend Stephen quoted C.S.Lewis.  Nothing unusual there I hear you say, don't all preachers?  However, what made my internal radar lock onto this reading was that I had used it myself a few years earlier.

 "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." C S Lewis.

 Years ago I had used this to challenge others now I felt myself staring down the steely blade of a Lewis quote from the pointy end!  It jabbed and poked away at my spirit, I was being challenged, but in what area?

 When I had wielded the Narnia blade I had just encountered my Abba Father's love for the first time in my life.  It set my whole world ablaze and (not for the first time) I had hope that the issues in my personal life would find healing.  I challenged my congregation to think about areas   which had become unbreakable, impenetrable and irredeemable in their hearts and offered hope that with Abba's extravagant love...Big Love...that love would win!

 I still believe that!

 5 years later...love did win...it just took a very dramatic and unexpected route for me.  So why, if love won the day, is the Big Love of God jabbing away at me with the words of C S Lewis?

 I have kept vast chambers of my heart out of bounds to Abba.  The church's response, my close friends response to my plight left me bruised and bewildered and I built an impenetrable wall around it.
Proverbs 4:23 says to guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.  It speaks of controlling what goes in and what flows out.

I have asked Abba, when can I begin to minister to others that message about His love.  I had detected no meaningful answer until my friend Stephen wielded Rhindon.  "Uncap your heart," I hear Him say, "Make yourself vulnerable to others again.  Time to let love in all its guises flow in so that love can once again flow out."

I can't have one without the other!


Comments

  1. Unknown19 April 2020 at 08:50

    Thanks for that, I too have felt the need to retreat behind the impenetrable wall.

    I learnt years ago that some of the worst people to be "real" with are church people!

    Still trying to find my way back to the source of true love, Jesus only.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Vanessa Bentley19 April 2020 at 08:54

    Thanks, Jonathan. This time I see a place for comments where there was none before.

    A simple point, if I may - you may need to explain Rhindon to your reader. Not everyone is prepared to follow a link to a different page and you want to keep your reader on board, don't you?

    It is good to hear from you in this vein again. It has been a while . . .

    ReplyDelete

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