A New Heart

Several weeks ago, when I went to the training for my fitness class, I ended up traveling with a girl who was also attending the training. After traveling together, and rooming together for the weekend she became aware that I was a believer. I am not a "shove it down your throat" kind of girl. I absolutely, with all my heart, believe that when Jesus told us that people would know us as believers by the way we love each other, he meant it. Any way, so on our way home she began to ask me questions about my faith and the more questions she asked, and the more I answered her, the more she got upset. She wasn't even asking controversial questions, it seemed to be making her mad that I had answers to the questions she was asking. I tried a few times to change the subject because it was clear that she was not seeking, but trying to be mean. Finally she said, "Well you know, all those people probably just made all that stuff up. There is no way you could even know any of that stuff happened." I just smiled and said, "You know what I think is so neat? The Bible actual has more documentations and writings from those times to back it up than any other historical writing in the whole world."  (Yep. Can not even believe that I remembered it from the very boring exciting apologetics book I tried to read one time.) I wasn't upset at all, even when she wasn't being very nice. I just felt so sad for her. She just didn't get it; she was missing the whole sha-bang. 

Okay, so fast-forward to this week. I was reading in Mark 3, where Jesus heals the man in the synagogue on the Sabbath and the Pharisees plot to kill him. It says there that Jesus felt sad for the hardness in the Pharisees' hearts. As I read that it was almost like I could actually HEAR Jesus tell me, "See, Nicole, I'm giving you a new heart. A heart that doesn't get angry with people that don't understand me, or people who claim to know me but show nothing of me in their lives. The new heart I'm giving you grieves for people and their lost hearts."

I cried, just so you know. There is nothing in the world I want more than to have a heart that is more like Jesus'. I know that I have such a long way to go, but the journey is just so exciting.