God gave Solomon “largeness of heart” (1 Kings 4:29) and the psalmist asks God repeatedly in Psalm 119 to enlarge his heart. Paul says to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 6:11: “O Corinthians! We have spoken openly to you, our heart is wide open.” The King James says “our heart is enlarged.”  So what is it to have a large heart?

We sometimes describe a person as having a big heart or we speak of hearts swelling.  A large heart swells to make room. Make room for what? Usually to make room for more people, like squeezing in an extra chair around the table for another guest. It doesn’t shrink back or turn them away. It welcomes more. So a large heart is a generous heart, willing to share, willing to listen, willing to be interrupted, willing to be spent and used.

A large heart is a courageous heart. We imitate Paul in the verse above who spoke openly and opened his heart wide to the Corinthian church. This is high-risk living! This requires faith. Think of the women in history who have stood courageously for Christ in the midst of persecution. They had large hearts, like Priscilla and Aquilla (Romans 16:3-4) who “risked their own necks” for Paul.

How do we get large hearts? “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart” (Psalm 27:14).

We are exhorted to be tenderhearted in Ephesians 4:32: “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” We see it again in 1 Peter 3:8: “Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous.”

Though all Christians are called to be tenderhearted, this quality is generally cutting with the grain with women. “Mother love” is sensitive, gentle, full of pity, sympathetic, forgiving and so forth. Women are generally good at these things, showing mercy, anticipating needs, extending comfort, and multitasking all of it. No one needs to tell a mother to love on her baby unless she is a hardhearted woman.

This kind of love is not sentimental, cutsie love. That kind of love can’t go the distance. Sentimental love is about the warm feeling I get when I do nice things for others; it is not really about the others. Jesus was not getting good feelings Read More

“A sound heart is life to the body,
But envy is rottenness to the bones.”

Envy isn’t always obvious. Today I’d like to think about the kind of envy that presents itself as a desire to do a good job – using that as a way to keep us from noticing what it actually is.

When caring for children and the home is what you do full time, you will spend much of your time trying to problem solve. How to get the laundry running smoothly, how to make the playroom functional, how to have the living room be the playroom but still somewhere a person could sit if necessary. How to work through the temper tantrums that your toddler has begun throwing, how to make a birthday fun, how to make your grocery budget last the month. These are the sorts of problems that you work on full time.

But what if there is always a solution that is just outside of your grasp? What if all you need to do your job well is more money? A bigger home, a husband who knows what to say or build the things you think of, children who obey, a better washing machine, a dishwasher, a second car, a second income, more time, more friends, more help from Read More

Before God sent Good News in His Son Jesus Christ, there was bad news. This bad news is that our hearts (as Jeremiah 17:9 puts it) are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. That is very bad news indeed. And complicating this further, God sees our hearts (1 Samuel 16:7) and all the vile things that come out of them (Matthew 15:18-19). Proverbs (27:19) says “As in water face reflects face, so a man’s heart reveals the man.” We are all exposed before God, each and every one of us.

But God’s Good News is powerful to save us in this desperate condition. “I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart” (Jeremiah 24:7).

Our response to this Good News is to put and keep our trust in the living God.”The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:8-9).

So let’s review this material: 1. Our hearts are corrupt and God sees them in all their stench and filth. 2. Only God can change our hearts. 3. We must never trust our own hearts, but put our trust in God who is powerful to save.

This is Good News for the New Year and for always.

Happy New Year, All! We thought we would try something new this year – alongside our normal posts, we are going to give  a whirl at a daily devotional post. Hopefully soon there will be a special place for you to find them – but until then, they will just show up in the regular mix.

There is one who scatters, yet increases more;
And there is one who withholds more than is right,
But it leads to poverty.
 The generous soul will be made rich,
And he who waters will also be watered himself.

These verses are such a beautiful picture of God’s intention for His people to be givers. He loves to bless those who give, who scatter. God is not endorsing a tight fist, in fact, that is what He breaks with poverty. And of course He isn’t talking about simply giving money here. As mothers, we could simply substitute words like energy, love, joy, provision, interest, delight, time. Anything that we know we should give, and yet still want to keep for ourselves. But haven’t you ever spent a day trying to save your energy, trying to build up some joy for yourself? And yet – at the end of the day, that is not a dam that God wants us to have. He wants our rivers flowing fast – flowing furiously over waterfalls, splashing recklessly all around. He does not want us tending peaceful little ponds. The promise in these verses is that God will provide our tributaries. He wants us to rest in that, and to give freely what He has and is giving to us.

When we give what God has given us – when we scatter it recklessly – we are transformed (through His continued blessing) into a vehicle of His blessings for others. We become tributaries to what will become rivers of reckless giving. When we give beyond our apparent capacity – when we give of ourselves, of all that we have been given, we learn to rely on the provisions of God, and we know He is always capable of a rainstorm,  melting snowcaps, and springs that flow out of the driest of rocks.

He who waters will also be watered himself.