My heart is in the hand of the Lord – Prov 21:1

This morning, I awoke to my heart being heavy.  People that I care about, some whom I have not thought about in quite some time were on my heart.  Some of them have evil, oppression, deception, deprivation, heartache, neglect, abuse, people seeming to run away from God and the list goes on

Out of nowhere, it seemed, Holy Spirit reminded me of Prov 21:1  “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.” (NASB)

Probably the reason that it seemed to be out of “nowhere”, is because He had brought this verse to me before, in 2 different contexts.

The first was when I had an unreasonable boss.  He showed me that even if my boss did not follow Jesus, and would not heed the cautions in Eph 6:9, and Col 4:1.

“And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.” Eph 6:9 (NASB)

“Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.” Col 4:1 (NASB)

I had responsibilities to give them my obedience, and to honor them. (Eph 6:5, and Col 3:22)

It killed me by inches it seemed. Some unreasonable bosses seemed to be even more unreasonable because I followed Jesus.  So the Lord assured me that He was still in control and that even when my bosses were unreasonable (most often fearful), that He still had their hearts in His hands.  I needed that reassurance.

Then there was a time where I so much wanted to vote my conscience in a major election, except, each candidate seemed to have major character flaws.  I asked if I should just not vote.  I sensed that the answer was “No”.  So I went, and while inside the voting booth, I was still in the quandary.  “Help!”, I prayed.  A peaceful answer came, vote for the candidate that I respected the most, and let the rest be up to Him.  Later, as I was thinking about some past presidents, and how some seemed to show their lack of character even more when they were in office, I realized that Prov 21:1 was just as true of them as it was of the current president.

So, what did this all have to do with this morning, and my heavy heart.

I realized that He isn’t maxed out carrying the hearts of the people in power.  He carries all of our hearts.  Broken hearts, bruised hearts, bleeding hearts, running hearts, starved hearts, fearful hearts, arrogant hearts, sinful hearts, ….  He *cares* about our hearts.  He *loves* our hearts.  And He moves our hearts, and guides them.  He guides them back to His own heart.