By Lizzie Hernandez

This morning, we started off walking later than usual but due to the time of year it was still very dark, eerily so. There were no birds chirping in fact everybody in Trinidad and Tobago still had on their lights! Probably taking in that last bit of sleep.

Along the way, however, the path brightened. Brightened enough to find a pair of pants flung into one of the trees right opposite the church! The juxtaposition of the garment right opposite the entrance to the church made me remember the prophet Joel. Joel 2:13 says “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love”. Perhaps without meaning to, the previous pants owner gave a sign of a choice to be made. A life-changing, path-altering choice perhaps?

We often sit and wish things to be different. But for true difference to happen, we must change not only our exterior (our pants , our clothes, our hair and make-up) but we must also change our heart and mind. We must not only make the cosmetic changes but also change the real heart of the matter. Jesus said in Matthew 9:17, “Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

We simply cannot be a champion while thinking defeatist thoughts. We cannot live a resurrected life with failure in our hearts. That new business will be stifled by our past failure if we take it along. That new relationship will be burdened by past hurts that we take along. That encounter with an old friend may be muted by past misunderstandings. We must rend our hearts allowing God to create something new.

Psalm 51:10 says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
This creation of something clean implies a purging of the old. It doesn’t happen overnight though, it’s a progressive, deliberate change applied to our thoughts and motives. These changes slowly affect our actions and so we put away former things. 1 Corinthians 13:11
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” God can do much with a willing heart. He can do tons with a broken heart; he can work wonders with a yielded heart.

Today is a perfect day to rend your heart, to start afresh, to make a choice to give it all to Him today!