Open your hearts...

I was struck by a set of Paul's words as I read through 2 Corinthians. I've read that book a few times before, so I don't know why the words leapt off the page this time, but they really did. Check out 2 Cor 6:13:

I am asking you to respond as if you were my own children. Open your hearts to us!

I was also intrigued, as I finished the book, to see Paul use that phrase again. (2 Cor 7:2)

Open your hearts to us.

Isn't it a beautiful quintet of words?

Open your hearts to us.

But I hear melancholy, too. Sadness that there are folks Paul deeply desires to serve, to love, to guide, to inspire. Yet at least some of those folks in ancient Corinth seemed to keep their hearts closed off.

Open your hearts to us.

I empathize with Paul. There have been people throughout my years of ministry who seemed to close themselves off. Perhaps their hearts were stabbed too many times to trust another leader. Maybe their hearts were scaled by bitterness. Likely there was some fear encasing the soft fleshy life-source we call the heart. And I'm sure there were times I was the culprit, and that saddens me greatly.

Open your hearts to us.

Sometimes you just have to be as direct as Paul was, I suppose. 

Open your hearts to us.

And other times, I imagine the only way hearts can be opened is for the Holy Spirit to break through callouses that have grown to cover the tender places.

And then I wonder, too, how many times Father, Son and Spirit have whispered to me:

Open your heart to us.


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