Heart and Intentions

Now I am hidden in the safety of your love
I trust your heart and your intentions
Trust you completely, I'm listening intently
You'll guide me through these many shadows

When I was little, I would get angry at the silliest things. I got into a fight with my sister once because she tried to tell me that Easter was more important than Christmas (how dare she).  I also got 'fabulously' angry that the holiday we are celebrating today was called Good Friday. They hurt MY Jesus, and they called it GOOD Friday. That's the childlike faith I wish I still had sometimes. 

But it is good. 

This song that I posted above has been wrecking the crap out of me since I heard it first, helping me to declare and believe the things that I am afraid of. 

Because we all know that we trust God in theory; we are well aware that He holds the sun, moon, and stars in the palm of His hand. He makes all things work together, and He knows the plans he has for us, and something about not leaning on your own understanding. But we don't really trust him. Sometimes we get away with it because we don't learn on our own understanding. We just lean on mistrust because we're afraid to be wrong, get hurt, or become uncomfortable. 

When we don't trust someone, it is because they aren't worthy of our trust. Their intentions are questionable, their heart may be geared only to them, and under their wing, we know there is no future, no shelter, and no rest. When we trust someone, we trust their heart, their intentions, and the way they value us. 

This past season has been tough for me, despite the amount of times you may have seen me laughing. It's been one where I've been broken in half to be only put back together by Him. It's been a season where I just figured that if I asked with TONS of faith, I would get everything I wanted, and I have had to learn that the idea was great, but the execution only told God, "I'm making my own plans, I just need to you make sure it all works together. Then I will trust you." 

And while I thought about all of the theological lessons I would learn from it, I could hear God so faintly, so sweetly, asking me, "But don't you trust me yet?" 

"Of course I do, Lord! I gave you my life and I know you 'know the plans that you have for me' so yes, I trust you." 

"Jackie, do you simply know that you NEED to trust me? Or do you actually trust me?"

Ouch. 

When I think about Good Friday, I think about a good, good father. A father with only the right intentions. A father with a heart as big as the moon. I think about the fact that He has dreams for us that don't even measure up to the insane dreams that we had when we were but children. 

I think about the fact that he knew we needed saving that took dying for, but that wasn't the point. 

He didn't send the perfect sacrifice; He became it. 

Talk about intentions. Talk about someone we can trust with our future. With our today.

Today was the day, that many years ago in history, that Jesus said, "I don't want to just heal them. I don't want to just love them. I want to save them. I will die for them."

Good, good Friday. 

When someone thinks you're worth dying for, it's time to trust their intentions. And I want to say that the greatest joy in life is knowing Him, but my mind is so finite to who He is. The greatest joy in life is being known by Him. By my dad. By my dad with good heart and good intentions.

So here I am. It's Good Friday and I am about to go shopping because I have procrastinated my Easter outfit, watching a friend do homework and wondering why there are people out there who don't know Him. And I guess I have come to realize that they don't see what's so good about it. Maybe they can't see the good in Him, the good heart and intentions in Him. Maybe it's because people are so hard to trust. Not without a price, anyway.

"He didn't HAVE to die for me."

But He wanted to.

"But I don't even know Him."

But He knows you.

"I'm not a good person. He's probably mad at me."

No, He's not mad at you, He's mad about you. 

No price. No contract. No fine print. 

Just good heart, just good intentions.

Good Friday.