Thursday, April 2, 2020

A Special Place in the Heart


Thursday, April 2, 2020

Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.  Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now.  And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.  So it is right that I should feel as I do about all of you, for you have a special place in my heart.  You share with me the special favor of God, both in my imprisonment and in defending and confirming the truth of the Good News.  God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus.  I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding.  For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.  May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.      Philippians 1:3-11

We all have those who occupy a special place in our hearts.  For me their number is legion.  First, by absolute default, and by choice, my family; blood is, as is said, thicker than water.  There are also those people who have mentored me in the art and heart of living the Christian life.  And there are just those people who are inexplicably wonderful to my heart, dear ones God brought into my pathway that opened new levels of friendship. 
I think Paul had that with the believers at Philippi.  There is something that happens between people, either over the course and events of our lives, or in an unexplainable bonding moment, because the Holy Spirit is working in some way to knit people together for God’s purposes.[1]  Who, really can say how it happens, or know the mind of God completely to understand why it happens; but the connection is there, and Paul expresses it as a special place in [his] heart. 
And it is a gift.  Not as in the gifts of preaching, teaching, healing – spiritual tools with which God has blessed for His service – but in the sense of a personal blessing of encouragement God has dropped on your life.  It is a comfort to know your friend will be there whatever the winds of happenstance.  It is a bond of assurance to know you can go forward, and your sister-in-Christ will forgive you, even if you mess it up big time.  It’s strength for the long haul.  It’s your touchstone person when the forecast is for 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in your country, and you don’t know how to minister to that kind of fear.  It’s that special place in your heart where there is darkness, and that person is your candle.
I don’t think this is a possibility for manufacturing.  You cannot make this up, force it in, or demand it in prayer.  This is that thin place between you and heaven, where God just knows what you need, and God’s graceful hand pulls back the fuzzy wool from your spiritual eyes and you see that person’s stamp on that part of you….and it’s a surprising moment when you realize how connected you really are to another human, eternal soul.  And, yet, it’s no surprise on the other side of that realization; you somehow sensed it, but may have resisted being that vulnerable.  And, suddenly, it’s upon you, and there is joy, like the kind of joy Peter wrote about how we love Jesus:

You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.  1 Peter 1:8

For You Today
With that gift of unspeakable joy in your life there’s not a moment to waste on wringing hands in worrying fear; it’s time to step out in assured faith and live big!  After all, YOU are in a special place in God’s heart!
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For another post on Philippians 1:3-11 see Together also see A Pastor’s Prayer 

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