I really wanted to finish my prayer series by December, and then I thought surely by January it would be over. Here I am, January 5 and still have 2 verses left. My life has been hectic and busy, but in a good way, lately. I haven\’t had much time to write or check Facebook. I suppose this all changes today. After spending the holidays at my parent\’s house with my family, I am back in Austin weeks before school starts up again and that\’s not much going on. A good opportunity to reflect and be mindful perhaps.
Today\’s verse is about the pure of heart. To be completely honest, I don\’t really have anything to say about this. What does it even mean to be pure of heart? It can\’t possibly mean perfection, can it? That is simply too hard to obtain. Purity is so clean, so untouchable. I\’m a lot of things, and pure is not the first adjective to describe me, although it is what my name, Karen, means. I\’m too human to be pure. I\’m too selfish to be spotless. But the pure heart, I suppose would be the epitome of what a heart is supposed to do. So what is a heart made to do? When is it most heart-like? My first reaction would obviously be love, but I feel like that is a cop-out answer. Yes, I am supposed to love purely and completely, but what else could I say about that? Instead, I think that the heart\’s job is also to seek. Our heart seeks what our soul needs and it guides ourselves on the journey of our lives. It brings us to God, it brings us to ourselves. It, by it\’s very nature, is engaged. One of my absolute best friends once told me the heart always knows the truth…deep down inside. Sin and imperfection might have confused us, but truth speaks to our hearts and it moves us. We can fight it, we can ignore it, but we are moved by it. I have had some interesting encounters with people who have had very strong emotional reactions to something that for me did not bring about much feeling at all. I encouraged them to think about that, because it apparently had a more emotional response than they were anticipating and that must tell them something about themselves. Lately, I have been having strong emotional reactions to various going-ons in my own life. Perhaps I need to take my own advice, so that my heart can be pure.
\”Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly all nature seeks God and works toward him.\” – Meister Eckhart