Weekending Well: Heart to Heart
We forget how invested God is in us. Deeply. Intricately. How much he longs for us. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again for us, then this is the extravagant love he invites us to lean into.
Hello! Welcome to this week’s free Weekending Well article! Today, you can listen along as you read or simply listen instead ❤️. There’s a little more introduction to Strengthen in the audio and the song links mentioned at the end are here in the article 🙋♀️🎧.
How is it that God carries the weight of the world and yet sees the intricacy of the one? This always fascinates me! Each one of us. You and me? We forget how invested he is in each of us personally. Heart to heart.
The individuality and depth of his heart to heart connection is mind-blowing when I really pause to think about it. The exclusivity of a unique, personal relationship with him. The intricacy of uniquely planning each one of us as he knit us together before we were born.
When we feel distance between us and him, and even when we enjoy fleeting moments of closeness with him, we forget the intensity of his love for us. When we are focused on the mess of our lives, the jumble of emotions, the tangled narratives that we are trying to straighten out ourselves, it’s too easy to think it’s our mess to sort, ours to fix. We forget how invested in us he is.
That’s right. I said invested. God is deeply invested in an intimate, unique, loving and personal relationship with each one of us. We forget that he is running towards us. Like the Good Father in the parable recorded in Matthew 21. The one where he runs to welcome home the son who has extravagantly wasted his inheritance.
Prodigal means wasteful not lost. Extravagantly wasteful. A story of a son who extravagantly wastes the rich inheritance that a deeply invested, loving father gave him.
Heart to heart, there is a depth of intimacy and love that scripture teaches us God has for us. A depth of knowing us that is so overwhelming, exclusively existing just for each one of us. His heart to our unique heart.
The Bible teaches us that love is not a portion assigned to us that we can use up - yet we can waste it. There’s a flow, a constancy that awaits us, even when we have run from it, slipped from it, not understood it, let it slip and slide away, dusted over in our hearts and minds.
When we’ve put God behind us, he still places us before him - we are remembered. Not flung aside. And he’s waiting, calling, knocking, drawing us to him with cords of loving kindness. Waiting for us to stand once more before him, in that place that awaits us. Our spot in his heart and mind. The one he aches for us to connect with. He is invested.
I believe he does that not just with our whole lives, but with the parts of our lives we leave out in the wilderness too. Those prodigal parts. The ones we leave in the attic of our lives or have long left outside, uncared for, unwatered, unseen and neglected. Gifts. Abilities. Calling. Dreams. Ambitions. Vision.
There are things we have put behind us that God still keeps placed before him, clear in his memory. Written in his plans, rooted in his desire for each of our unique fulfilment. Waiting, calling, knocking, drawing us to him with cords of loving kindness as he waits for us to remember those gifts, that calling, those dreams. To dare to dust them off and hold them before him once again, no longer wasting them, but offering them in beautiful surrender. Daring to remember and believe that they matter, not just to us, but to God as well.
Whatever the fulfilment of them may look like in this new day of our lives, we can be sure of this; he will delight in breathing life into them again. The fallow season over.
In the seasons and places of our lives where we have felt distance, or at best, a parallel living with God, his love has never diminished.
He hasn’t forgotten our intricacies. He hasn’t forgotten his plans and his desires that are exclusive to each of us. He hasn’t paused them. Instead, he has held them, jealously, faithfully, swelling with mercy and compassion as he watches us waste that intimacy in part or fully. Prodigal parts of our lives, extravagantly missing the extravagant fulfilment of doing life intimately with him.
God, who exists through the ages of time, desires each of us intimately and exclusively. Heart to heart. A relationship into which we lean throughout every storm. Heart to heart within the wilderness of this world. Arm in arm with others who also know that intimacy with him; the power of being exclusively loved as an individual and yet also included in, desired in, placed within God’s larger, eternal plan.
Not parallel or left behind. Not forgotten or overlooked, but run toward and welcomed not just by name but with every tear known, every tiny thread of our story understood. Every ambition seen. Every gift celebrated. Every potential within us treasured.
Who we are is integral to God - and that is mind-blowing to really understand. It feels audacious to even think. Yet he grieves for us. Restoring those broken and bruised parts of us with compassion. Longing for the intimacy he too enjoys when we lean into walking closely with him.
He doesn’t just love us. We really matter to him.
While we yearn for fulfilment in life, we forget that we also fulfil longings and desires in him - he desires connection with us, honour from us, intimacy with us. He desires our exclusive worship of only him. Heart to heart. Drawing near to catch a glimpse of the depths of that extravagant love that he holds and pours out for us.
For God so loved each and every one of us that he sent Jesus to call us back from the wastelands, to bring the prodigal parts of us back into heart to heart connection with God. Wasting our lives no more in the wastelands of this world. Instead, leaning in, bringing each part of us, surrendering each hope, each ambition, each gift, each call and saying “Here I am, just for you”.
Heart to heart.
Oh, how he loves us!
I love the surrender of this beautiful song by Becca Folkes. That exclusivity, our uniqueness, it’s all for him, designed by him - placed within us to honour him.
As you listen, I invite you to consider the prodigal parts, the gifts, the dreams, the calling that you may that have become dusted over through the years, and to bring them all to him. I invite you to surrender the bruises, the disappointment and the unmet desires. And I invite you to surrender the glories - the confidence, the status, the things you have begun to lean on instead of leaning into him and his mercies. And to remember, drawing closer to him, that all of you really is designed all for him:
Before you go…
A couple of very cool and hot Strengthen online Zoom groups you might like!
The Sanctuary Group:
Wednesdays 10am - 11.30am GMT
There’s an upgrade from Strengthen Insider membership to a weekly small group where we share, pray, laugh, encourage and learn together. We’ll be leisurely making our way through one of Kristi McLelland’s Bible series over the Summer term as we spend time together. If you’re an Insider and would like to join, there’s a modest monthly charge of £15 to join the group and the one off cost of buying the study book which also gives you personal video access. Find out more here.
And here’s the second one:
The Oasis Group:
If you’re a coach, counsellor, therapist or pastoral professional, I’m launching the first Strengthen Oasis Group on Thursday 18th April 2024
This is a group for big-hearted professional ladies who want to take some time out each week to defend their own wellbeing - in the company of women just like them who love Jesus and are pouring themselves out for others in their professional life.
The first group will meet on Thursdays. There is a possibility of a Monday evening group, depending on demand. You would need to pick one to be a part of regularly. This group is open to people who aren’t Strengthen Insiders - although there is a fabulous discount for you if you are, plus other perks!
I’m excited that Strengthen is growing - slowly but surely, the community is developing and you’re more than welcome to be a part of it in the way that works best for you. If that’s as a free subscriber, then you’re so appreciated! If you want devotionals and audio content, then do upgrade before the subscription rises on May 1st 2024.
Of course, if you’d like to support Strengthen and my work here without upgrading, there are several ways you can do this:
Liking, commenting and sharing posts - this helps others to see them
Restacking posts (if you’re on Notes on Substack)
Recommending Strengthen on your Substack profile if you’re a writer here
Sending a friend a private message and inviting them to read or subscribe
Simply donating - either one off or via a regular donation
I appreciate any and all of these. They take just a few moments to do and can truly help spread the joy, love and the word❤️
We focus here at Strengthen on a blend of wellbeing and devotional content here, alongside leaning into God and his word. We enjoy being Christians who are leaning into God, growing in God and defending our wellbeing.
Have a fabulous weekend! I’ll leave you with the fabulous Lauren Daigle singing about the heart of the Good Father, the Good Shepherd, the Rescuer of our souls. Remember: God is invested in each of us, which means he’s invested in you:
What a great article!
It’s so amazing to think about how much God loves us, to really stop and think about it. It is mind blowing really!
( also loved the audio 😊) x