How to Set Your Heart on God Despite Everything

2020 turned out to be quite the history-making year. And in 2021 the unwelcome and all-too-familiar Covid-19 slowly but surely made its heaving whirl through my entire family for an unrelenting five weeks straight. The story didn’t end like we hoped, believed, and prayed it would, as we said goodbye that February to my beloved, steady as a rock father-in-law.

2022 held more grief and trauma for our family as we lost another deeply close family member. Not on this earth yet, but in ways that I could have never in a million years imagined. Every now and then as I sleep, I have a dream about her. It’s always the good, happy memories, never the bad, sad, or horrible. I’m so grateful for that tender grace.

And here we are in 2023. It started out promising, with new dreams and momentum, fresh grace on my skin, and a return to my counselor’s couch for a check-in on my weary and worn heart. A check-in that has lasted nearly seven months now, to which I have no plans of retreating any time soon (or at least I don’t think the Lord does, wink). I am healing. I am becoming. And I am learning how to hold steady to faith, hope, and love – and loosely to my expectations, especially as my oldest two sons graduate college, prepare for careers, engagements, and a life of leaving and cleaving and glorifying God wherever they may go.

And I bet, though the chapters of your story look different than mine, you can relate on some level. Not one of us has been untouched by these days which can often feel like decades. It’s wild how billions of grains of good can get buried by the tides of loss and loneliness.

What Job Teaches Us About Where to Turn Our Hearts

And so, when life gets disorienting, I tend to curl in quiet, desperate to make sense of what feels so out of control. To rediscover, remind, and reorient my heart on the God who holds all things together and gives me air to breathe. In and out. Today and tomorrow.

The truth is, turning the calendar page from one year to the next (or honestly from one day to the next) doesn’t change anything except the date. Pastor Mark Batterson said it this way: “If we want to change our life, we have to change our story. We have to flip the script. And the only cure for our script is Script-ure.”

Like in the book of Job. This man had been knocked down and nearly out by one senseless tragedy after another. And though he lamented and complained and pleaded with God, he never denied Him. He ultimately never lost hope in the One who works in ways we cannot see. His heart was set on the One whose purposes are

unstoppable,

unshakable,

unfailing,

and unimaginable.

“Do you think you can explain the mystery of God? Do you think you can diagram God Almighty? God is far higher than you can imagine, far deeper than you can comprehend…If you redirect your heart and spread out your hands in prayer…you will forget your suffering, recalling it only as water that has flowed by. Your life will be brighter than noonday; its darkness will be like the morning. And you will be confident, because there is hope; you will look carefully about and lie down in safety.” -Job 11:7-8 MSG; 13-18, CSB

And this, THIS, is the kind of story worth flipping the page for, worth living for, even and especially when life goes off script.

You see, we only get to choose one thing. And it’s a big thing.

Perspective.

4 Little Words to Change Your Perspective

For some, seeing the glass half full comes fairly naturally. And oh how we need these friends in our lives, even if they “challenge” us a little. For others of us (my hand slowly raising high), seeing fully takes great discipline and daring faith. Just like anything that’s worth fighting for.

I’ve been scared. I’ve been lonely. I’ve been confused. I’ve been angry. I’ve been exhausted. Because I’m human, just like you. And just like Job. A man who clearly was scared, lonely, confused, angry, and exhausted.

A man who knew how to find his way back to God by declaring what was true despite what he felt. “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.” -Job 19:25, NLT

But as for me.

These four words aren’t how the dictionary defines perspective, but it’s how Job stood up to his failing sight. It’s how he fought for truth when all hope seemed “pulled up like a tree.”

Job didn’t dismiss his humanity. Neither should you or I. And neither does the God who formed us.

Yet, Job also believed beyond all hope in the One who creates from clay, paints with fire, raises the dead, and makes broken beautiful.

But as for me …

No matter what, no matter when, no matter why, by the grace of God, I’ll never stop choosing to believe that my Redeemer lives. And for as long as I have breath, I will fight to remember that He gets the last word in His story and mine. It may not be a “happily ever after,” but it absolutely will be good forever after.

A Place to Start or Begin Again

Sometimes, a good reset for some of us requires a track to run on. If you’re looking for that, here’s how to read the bible every day  and how to deal with distractions that get in your way of reading! You can set your heart on God again and again.