Incline my heart

Each morning before the house awakes I sit here in my sunroom reading.  A room with so much light has convinced me to begin a small collection of houseplants.  I watch them from day to day determining what needs water or which plant has outgrown its planter and needs an upgrade.  Sitting nearest to me is a small violet in which I have made its home in the cutest little vintage hippo planter.  It started small and I wasn’t sure it would live.  However, over a period of weeks it has flourished and doubled in size.  Recently, I noticed that it was leaning, almost hanging over the planter.  At first I wondered if I hadn’t rooted it well and it was becoming top heavy.  Then my thoughts went to the light.  If you have ever grown plants you are aware that plants grow toward the light.  Why?  Plants turn the light into energy which then allows them to grow or perform any other activities needed to survive.  We also know this process as photosynthesis.

I decided to conduct a little experiment to determine the reason for my leaning violet.  I turned the planter 90 degrees so the opposite side would face the light.  I didn’t notice anything for several days but a week later I can already see a difference.  It is in a more neutral position.  My guess is that over the next week or two it will again be leaning toward the light.

Left to my own devices, my own flesh and blood, I have little in common with the violet.  Naturally I do not lean toward the light.  Actually, I lean away from the light.  Romans 3:10-18 explains the evil of my flesh.  Verse 12 specifically says “all have turned aside”.  Turned aside means “to lean in the wrong direction”.  According to John MacArthur these words were used to describe “a soldier’s running in the wrong way, or deserting”.  He also goes on to say that “all people are inclined to leave God’s way and pursue their own.”

What if my little violet were to lean itself away from the light?  What would happen?  My assumption would be that it would not flourish and grow and very possibly it would die.  Isn’t this true for me as well?  What happens if I continue to live according to my flesh, my “natural” ways, leaning away from the light?  Will I also wilt?

But . . . there is hope for my natural ways!!!!  Jesus Christ!  He was crucified, buried, and rose again in order for me to be able to lean toward the light.  He is the light of the world (John 8:12) and He lives within my soul!  I have the light of life because I am a follower of Him (John 8:12).

Does this mean I am perfect?  Will I always lean, as my little violet, toward the light no matter what position I am placed in?  Absolutely not!  Even though I am a child of the one true God there is still, while on this earth, a battle raging in me between the flesh and spirit.  I will still have a tendency to lean away from the light.

My encouragement in this battle is that I don’t have to wonder how the battle will end.  He is victorious!!

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace?  Romans 6:14 

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world.  John 16:33 

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  1 Corinthians 15:57

And as I battle, my prayer is that I will delight in His law and that He will incline my heart to Him!

My delight in the law of the Lord will result in me being like a tree planted by streams of water which yield its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.”   Psalm 1:3 

“Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain.  Psalm 119:36

 

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