The Heart of the Matter

Thinking today how my kid's behavior exposes the condition of their little hearts.

AND

My behavior towards their behavior also exposes something about the condition of my heart.

It is far to easy to think behavior is only skin deep.

It isn't. 

It goes all the way into our hearts and says something about what we think, assume, hold true, are deceived in or feel about ourselves or God.

In mothering, adoptions, marriage we deal with people's behavior... 

and we fail to see the heart of the matter. It is our greatest illusion. 

Pouting, whining, unkind words, hitting, rolling eyes, sassy tone, destruction, laziness, selfishness, apathy, forgetfulness, pickiness.... behaviors.

We were gone from home for weeks. We ROCKED as a family on the road. Then we got home and have fallen into the same old rut of behaviors that serve no one but self.
All of us. It is sad. It is tragic. It is life in the flesh.

All behaviors that expose our hearts and cause us to feel the need to either act out more sinful behaviors or to truthfully, graciously address the heart behind the behavior.


"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, 
God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 
by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. 
This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." 
Colossians 2:13-14

Making it my mission to change hearts (including my own) and to let behavior be only the byproduct of a heart that knows the truth about self and God.