Have My Heart

Have you ever heard a song that drastically and beautifully changed the way that you lived your life from the moment that sweet last note rang out?

The kind of song that sits in your soul and seeps down into your bones - saturating and curating the very structure of how you carry on breathing and thinking and doing life from that moment on into eternity? Man. That sounds awesome.

This song was not that kind of song for me…

The first time I heard it.

I remember - I was sitting in my car, leaving a worship night I had led at with some good friends. Even though it had been a good night, maybe even a great and powerful one, if I had been in a place to pay a little more attention and see it as such, but I was burnt out, scarred from the first year of the pandemic, lost, scared, exposed, and feeling every kind of emotion except the good ones. I had closed myself off. Soul, heart, mind - whatever you want to call it - was just like the sweet brunch spot down the street from me and my wife’s first apartment: “CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.”

Fantastic. Not only was my spiritual and emotional life a dumpster fire, I also couldn’t even get smoked bacon to briefly trick me into a dopamine rush of the “it’s all good” kind of feelings.

I digress.

A friend of mine had mentioned a song called “Have My Heart” to me while packing up from the night, and I downloaded it on the spot. Once I got in the car, I hit play and pulled out of the lot to head back home. I remember my first thoughts upon listening: “Nice chords. Good lyrics. Man… Chris Brown and Chandler Moore have crazy vocal chops. Oooh… sweet bridge.” Truth be told, it was ALL surface. True things about the song, for sure, but nothing actually shifting deep inside of me. I let it pass me by like a ship in the night - admiring it from a distance, and then letting the waves carry me on.

Fast forward a few months. Thanks to some amazing friends, an incredibly loving wife, and a good, good God, I was on the path to finding peace and joy in life for what I found was actually the first true time.

I was allowing my heart to feel it all during the process - the massive highs, the real and necessary lows, knowing that my Holy Father was carrying it in His hands the entire time, keeping me safe - yet allowing me to grow and learn.

During this season, I fell deeply in love with reading the book of Proverbs. Not only is it chock full of practical, holy, and applicable advice from a super smart dude (up till the end, sorry, Solomon), it also has such a spirit-filled sense of authority and peace behind the verses that hit my soul in such a fresh way during that time in my life. There was one verse in particular that became incredibly important to me:

My child, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways.

- Proverbs 23:26

I would recite it dozens if not hundreds of times a day. Each time, a recentering of thought priority. Each time, a shift of grip, from mine to His. Each time an opportunity to be reminded that the more I let go and allow Him to take hold, the more joy and peace I find as I see Him work through my life.

This was almost equally important for me: While researching the original Hebrew meaning behind the words of that verse, I found the word LEV. LEV is the Hebrew translation of our word “heart” - but to them it wasn’t just a body part, not by a long shot. Your LEV was not only the organ that gave you physical life, it was the place where you process your thoughts, where you think and make sense of the world around you and within you - where you make your choices and where you feel your emotions.

I started substituting the word “heart” for these bits and pieces of what LEV encapsulates.

“My child, give me your thoughts…”

“My child, give me your questions…”

“My child, give me your choices…”

“My child, give me your emotions…”

And each one of those requests followed with this sweet promise of reality:

...and let your eyes delight in my ways.

- Proverbs 23:26b

In a time in my life when I was learning how to awaken my heart to the goodness of God - to feel His truth and His fatherly love - this was a desperately needed guidepost. Each day, a reminder to not just give God a vague bit of myself, but to give Him EVERY PIECE of who He’s made me to be; everything within my mind, my soul and my body, knowing that when I place it within His hands it brings both He AND I joy and delight beyond understanding.

I went back and listened to this song after holding that verse close to my heart for a few months, and it shook me to my core in the best possible way. Emotions ran wild. Tears fell. Chains rattled and shattered as I worshiped Jesus for all that He’d done, does, and will do. It’s now one of the most important songs in my life, tied closely to one of the most important verses in my life, all about the goodness of the one and only God in my life.

Today, as you take a moment to reflect upon the lyrics of this song, let that verse resonate within you. Your Father WANTS your heart. He wants your mind. He wants your devotion, and He wants to see you delighted in what He does with you when you hand it all over.

Take that important step today. Give Him a piece of yourself that you’ve been carrying for too long. That one worry that’s been eating away at you. That one thought rattling away in your mind that can’t seem to be calmed. That one question that you just can’t come up with an answer for. That one feeling that you can’t get under control, no matter how hard you try.

Hand it over. He can take it.

Trust me, not only are His hands big enough - He WANTS it. Desperately.

He wants to see you delighted in His ways. He wants to see you full of peace that only comes from holy trust.

Be the Lord of my emotions.

Search me till there’s nothing hidden.

I give you everything.

You can have my heart.

Amen.

Ethan Rounds