More Inside...the Liver

In this fourth part of my series on Living for More, we look inside the heart. Are you brave enough to give your heart the freedom to live for more?

I fumble over the words, translating in my head what my heart wants to say. It’s one of those rare opportunities when a friend from this head-covering culture and I get to share below the surface topics of child-rearing and recipe ideas and weekend plans.

We are talking about what we each believe about God. And I want to get it right.

So, I try to say something about love that never ends and life freely given and freedom from guilt and changed hearts. And though the topic is deep, I nearly giggle when I say “changed heart” because in the Indonesian language, the words are “changed liver.”

And I also have to shake my head and laugh at myself as I have to give myself the same talk almost every day. Love that never ends. Life freely given. Freedom from guilt. Changed hearts…or livers.

Though I’ve heard the truth since I learned to talk, and though my parents modeled it well, I still mix up words. Like God as my loving Father. And God as my Coach. Somehow I think that He only loves me when I make a layup or when I hustle, and is ready to bench me when I fail. And for this girl who spent her basketball-playing years keeping the bench warm, this isn’t very good news at all.

Or I mix up words like “earned” and “given.” I forget that His acceptance was freely given to me, though it came at great sacrifice to Him.

Or words like “fear” and “freedom.” And I fumble as I try to make real what I tell others. To believe what I think. To live for what my heart-liver yearns.

Why do I do it? Why do I live with the lies when the life of truth lies close, ready for me to believe? Why do you do it? Why do you choose to believe that God is not always good, that He doesn’t have the power to freely give life, that His sacrifice meant nothing? Don’t you ache for more?

Its hard work—this operation on the organ (whatever organ it is). But I plow through, ready for more than wrong words, more than stunted beliefs, more than half-baked hopes frosted with lies.

And I know deep down that I can’t live well for more outside the door, or more inside the home unless I believe my heart is worth more than the value my flesh gives it.

That I am missing more than a free throw when I am not willing to throw away the lies.

That this More Living is going to take courage that I often forget was given to me years ago along with my changed liver.

Will you join me?

photo credit, epSos.de