Today’s journey started as it typically does: a cup of coffee, journaling, devotional reading, bible reading and praying over prayer list. When I asked Jesus while journaling what He wanted me to know for today, I sensed my need to address what I soon knew to call my heart. I read two devotionals. The first talked about the purity of God’s Word. It is always pure no matter what twist man may want to give it. The second devotional talked about the way of purity. The author said if we don’t recognize the evil desires of our heart we can never know the purity God’s Holy Spirit wants to replace it with. Lastly, my bible reading was the closing chapters of II Samuel. David had his mighty men do a census of his kingdom. David is known to be a man after God’s heart. However, for a moment he listened to his own prideful heart wanting to know the “man strength” of his kingdom. He paid a big price for this, and he learned a powerful lesson.

I write all of this because God is wanting me to see my own prideful heart, the things I want/desire which aren’t pleasing to God and go against the purity of God’s Spirit. I have said before and I’ll write it here again, my barometer for measuring purity of heart wasn’t using scripture, it was using dad’s behaviors. I had thought I was beyond this, but this morning God politely, but solidly, showed me where this isn’t the case as of yet. I was able to use the 3-R’s to address them: Recognize, Rebuke and Replace.

I never wanted to look in this world like my dad. However, I was looking at what man saw: actions. Today I saw what God sees–a selfish heart. It wasn’t the actions, it was the heart motivating the actions that God wanted me to see today. He and I are taking care of that. How I praise Him!