KykNET Lent Guide 2023Sample

Week 5: Purity

Day 2: Find your Heart

“You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.” Matt 5:8 (MSG)

Jesus invites us to go on an internal journey. He invites us to find our hearts. This means that we need to know what is in our hearts and we need to listen to our hearts. How do we find the core, the centre, the place where everything comes together in our lives?

In this week, you are invited to take a road taken by those in the early church. There are probably many ways to do this, but based on their understanding of Scripture and Christ’s teaching, one’s desires are the key to the door of one’s heart.

I was never taught what to do with my desires. Should I take note of them or should I ignore them? I was warned that desires are dangerous and that I need to be careful. What is important, is the ‘will of God' – which is usually the opposite of what I want. If I want to do what I really want, I am selfish. I must go against my desires. So, a great emphasis was placed on willpower. And if I didn’t do this, I felt very bad and it played on my emotions so that I might do what is right.

How do you think marriage might fare if a couple were to come together, say they love each other, and then one of the parties expects the other to forsake all of their own desires? From now on, only one party’s desires are valid. Is that a relationship? A love relationship? The problem with this approach is that it causes a split in our inner world. That what God wants is always against what I want. What I want is bad and unimportant. Is it possible that God loves us? That He is intensely interested in what goes on inside of us and wants us to be happy?

Exercise:

You are invited to come into contact with what you think about your desires, how do you go about your desires? Do you think about them? Do you give in to them or fight them? He comes to us and asks us what we want. Verbalise it and share it with Him.

Repetition Prayer:

Create in me a pure heart, oh God.