A Heart Like His

(from the page of my Devotional Journal, A heart Like His)

Artist and Warrior....

1 Samuel 16: 17-18 says… "So Saul said to his attendants, "Find someone who plays well and bring him to me. One of the servants answered, "I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the LORD is with him."

DAVID had tenderness and Sensitivity of an Artist. He was a musician and a songwriter whose comforting melodies truly ministered to King Saul’s aching soul.

Yet we are also told he was a warrior, brave and strong. The fingers that gently plucked the strings of a harp could wind fiercely around a sling or a sword.

Tenderness and strength are not exclusive terms. You see them both in David. And in Christ. One without the other leaves an individual lacking wholeness.

THE DEEPER QUESTION:

What qualities do you most value- tenderness or strength? In which direction do you lean? What can you do to develop either the sensitive or the risk-taking side of your personality?

My Answer:
Strength! I value it most, if I have to choose between tenderness and strength. And I obviously lean on it.

In the world- I was a self-made person. I labored hard on it to be one. My personality also exudes that. I’m a strong person. I grew and matured hard core. And I believe without that sense of toughness, I would not be “somebody” among my contemporaries. My height is my strength (my generation has a few taller women- in the family specifically), better looks is my strength, my bearing, my brain, my manner of speech, my achievement—these are my strengths, (what I blindly believed my edge.)

But without tenderness, I became a monster with that piled up strengths.

Developing both means depending on Someone who blesses me with tenderness and strength. Knowing Him and obeying on how He wants me to use it, so others will be blessed and God will be glorified and magnified.

The Prayer:
Father, I pray that You will teach me to value tenderness and strength in all your children, male and female, even as You teach me to rely upon Your Son, the essence of all strength.