Heart Matters

A lot has been happening to me and around me recently. New friends, having to move, the realization that I have not been putting much into my walk with God for the past I don't know how long...

And I've found that a lot of this is bombarding my heart. As in my emotions. As in "wait, I have those?"

It's all really unclear to me, still. I'm used to knowing precisely, making decisions, using logic, and coming to conclusions. This is because I largely function in the area of thinking over feeling. I think that God wants me to grow emotionally, though, because I'm realizing just how immature and underdeveloped I am in that side of myself.

I know a lot of things about God. And I do desire to follow Him. But so much of the time, it seems like my heart isn't in it, because I don't feel anything.
Please don't start with the "Youth Group Retreat High" argument (the one that goes "good feelings aren't true passion because they fade") because the opposite is also true. I can't just expect to tailgate on the bumper of "doing the right thing" without putting real love into it. We, as Christ-followers, need both. The hard work, the daily striving for righteousness, and the love, the part where we let God capture our hearts.

Dang, is that hard or what?

Anyway, opening up that side of me makes me feel really small and lost. Like I've been happily pretending that the city blocks in their ordered arrangement and the concrete with strategically placed patches of grass are all that matter when I go out walking, because if I'm looking at my feet it's harder to trip. Except I need to be looking up, too. The sky above is vast and expansive and wheeling with birds and bright, bright blue. And who knows if the cosmos has been exploding with new galaxies or the clouds have hit the sunshine just right and I've missed it all?

At least, when I'm trying to use my emotions, metaphors come more naturally.

Probably because I have to describe something unfamiliar using imprecise words.