Spring Cleaning Your Heart
Spring has finally arrived, and it is time to spring clean our hearts.
Springtime last year, COVID-19 brought a halt to our busy schedules and the world was forced to take a collective deep breath. We had no choice but to be still.
It feels like the year has come and gone, and it has. Many of our projects lay half complete in our garages and our anxious hearts still lay in limbo. From lockdown to lockdown, second to third waves, we continually are given no choice but to face ourselves.
Yet rather than leaning into the invitation to rest that this strange year has offered, we are hurling ourselves back into the busyness, shying away from facing ourselves and running like frightened children back into the arms of exhaustion. We are trying to neatly sweep away the issues that surfaced last year as a result of COVID. The year feels like it has come and gone because we have left so much unfinished.
It is time, and we need to make the time to finish spring cleaning our hearts.
If you are like me, you may be feeling more overwhelmed with your renewed busy schedule than you used to be. Like me, your spirit may be wearied with expectations from the present, unhealed wounds from the past, and uncertainties in the future.
Sister, it may be uncomfortable, but healing awaits you if you take a look at your heart. What better moment than now? Do not let this period in history where God is granting us rest and reflection pass you by without allowing God to do a new work in you.
In Psalm 139, after exclaiming that he has been fearfully and wonderfully made and that he is a priority on God’s heart, King David prayed this prayer,
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”(v 23-24, KJV).
It is a humble and vulnerable invitation for God, the One who knows and made the depths of our being, to peer into the corners of our hearts that we’ve left untouched.
Perhaps you are noticing that your heart is a bit more run down than you remembered; there’s a bit more clutter in the corners of your heart than when you last asked Jesus to wash you in His blood. Do you remember when you last let Him look at your heart? Perhaps the thought of truly and deeply opening up makes you want to run. Maybe you’re afraid to open the door to your heart because you know how much junk will come falling out if you fully open the door.
That is where I was last year.
For so long I had crammed my schedule with good things: college ministry, church outreach, discipleship, mentoring younger girls, young adults’ group, university classes in social justice, friendships, relationships, planning, scheduling, meeting after meeting, after meeting, after meeting.
For five semesters I was too busy to notice and too afraid of what Jesus would see if for a moment I let it all go. I knew that if I let him look into my heart, I would see the damage I had done.
Where once I had been able to pray David’s prayer with confidence, it became harder and harder to ask God to search my heart and try my ways without hesitating or trying to cover things from the Lord. When COVID-19 made life stop last year, I finally faced myself and I did not like what I saw.
Somewhere in between my “let’s change the world!” attitude and my “I have to earn love” motivations, my striving had fallen short. The hidden sin in my heart had crept in so gradually that I no longer even thought it was sin. When the busyness became exhausting, I used the secret sin in my heart as my coping mechanism. I no longer went to Jesus for my strength. I no longer spent my evenings pouring over the Word. But I secretly longed for the burden-free relationship I had with Jesus when I was younger.
We are so afraid of confronting our hearts and our sins that we run from ourselves and hide behind our hustle.
Miraculously, my eyes were opened. The moment I turned my heart back in repentance, Jesus sent out a rescue party for my heart. Jesus gave me the strength in my weakness to listen to His voice and he rescued me. Where I numbed myself to sin, he brought repentance. In a moment of courage, I swung open the door of my heart, and more junk came crashing down than I could ever have imagined could fit in my heart.
I finally felt free.
I began asking Jesus to look deeply into my heart and I searched myself with honesty. In my weakness, he was faithful and strong. I asked him honest questions like,
“What has my heart been seeking?”
“What parts of my heart have I been hiding from you?”
“What parts of my heart have I been keeping from your healing touch for years?”
The answers weren’t pretty. I saw that I was seeking intimacy of the heart, purpose and success, perfection, and acknowledgement. Jesus did not condemn me but showed me that I had sought their fulfillment in the wrong places. As I prayed through these longings, he revealed that he was not against my desires; he wanted to satisfy them himself.
Through it all, I heard his loving voice calling me to step deeper into his heart. I heard him call to me,
“Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” (Song of Songs 2:10, KJV)
I am still learning how to respond to his call for my heart; to hear his loving voice asking me to open up so that he can behold the beauty he made and cleanse me to make room for more.
Sister, O Daughter of the Most High King, Jesus is calling to you too! More than he wants what you can do for him in ministry, more than what you can bring in service, more than what you can achieve in college, career, or motherhood, he wants your heart. He wants the depths of your heart. Every part of it.
Do you hear his voice calling, O Cherished and Beloved, to “rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away”? Come away, he is calling, from the hustle, the burdens of ministry, and the fear of not being and doing enough. He’s calling you to rest your weary heart in His arms.
Let him see your whole heart. Though it may be uncomfortable at first, he will cast out your shame and fear. When you realize the depths of your need for His grace, shame will have no place.
There is no corner of your heart that he is not jealous for, He is a fierce lover, and he is a gentleman. He wants to know every corner of your heart so he can pour his healing love into every dark corner.
Does not your heart want to be wholly known? Does not your heart long to stop hiding? To be deeply cleansed?
He will not convict you of sin to condemn you. He convicts you of sin to set you free. To set you free to love him. To set you free to be loved by him. He wants to know your heart, and he wants you to feel known. Hiding from the one you love wears on your heart. He created you with a desire to be known so that he can fulfill it. He wants nothing to come between you and His love.
Do you hear him pursuing you, Beloved? Is this not what your heart longs for?
Sister, respond to the call of the Lover of your soul. There is safety in repentance. Do not cower in shame, for his gaze is loving. His gaze is healing.
In 2 Chronicles 15, Israel turns back to the Lord with their whole hearts and their whole desire. It says that the moment they sought the Lord, they found Him. They responded to His call and beckoning, and the Lord responded with grace and mercy. But what surprised me most was that the result of turning back to the Lord with their whole heart was rest. He gave them rest.
You will find rest from your striving when you let Jesus see the depths of your heart.
“Blessed is [s]he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”(Psalm 32:1)
Sister, I urge you to use this time in COVID to open up your heart and allow Jesus to see its depths.
You do not need to fear being known. Every morning that you wake up, offer your heart to Jesus. Hand over your heart to him to do the work he needs to do every day. Ask him to wash you in His blood and to search the depths of your heart. Keep a journal of what he reveals and does every day. Ask him hard questions and search your heart for honest answers. Your heart is safe.
I encourage you to pray this prayer out loud again and again until it sinks into your heart. Consider taking a posture of humility on your knees. Write the answers down to the questions you ask and rededicate those areas of your heart to him. He will reveal more and more to you.
Jesus, my lover and friend, here and now I lift up my heart with my hands (Lam. 3:41 KJV)
I ask you to show me the depths of my heart.
You are the author and finisher of my faith and because of the depths of your love for me,
I can safely surrender the depths of my heart to you and place it on the altar.
Show me the grace and mercy in your loving gaze
as you look into the corners of my heart where I have felt shame.
In the name of Jesus, I cast off the shame that I and others have spoken over myself.
I speak grace and mercy over my heart in the name of Jesus.
Search me, Jesus, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24 KJV).
I renounce the hidden things of dishonesty (2 Corinthians 4:2 KJV),
and I ask you to speak truth into my heart.
Give me the courage to uproot the sin in my heart.
Where my spirit and heart are weak, let your strength be made perfect (2 Corinthians 12:9 KJV).
Light my path and guide my footsteps to show me what I must do in obedience to your loving call to repentance.
Jesus, make my heart a home for you once again.
Help me repaint it in your cleansing blood and grace; purge it of sin, refurbish it with the fruits of the Spirit, and make it a place where you are welcomed and loved.
Breathe your life back into my heart and remind me daily that you loved me first (1 John 4:19 KJV).
Make my heart a home in which you abide.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Sister, you’ll come out of this time with a joy and peace you’ve not known before. You’ll come out of this time with a rested and renewed heart.
Let Him spring clean your heart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tatum Bergen is a twenty-two-year-old lover of Jesus, hiking, and photography from B.C., Canada. When she’s not adventuring with her girlfriends, you’ll find her worshipping with her church family. She is a part of prayer and discipleship ministries at her university, and she loves praying with students and seeking the heart of God for their campus. Above all, she is captivated by the beauty of Jesus’ heart and loves seeing Him in the world and people around her. She is pursuing a degree in international development and dreams of becoming a humanitarian photojournalist. You can see her journey @tatumelisabethphoto