“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and will all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30 (NIV)
Over summer vacation, my daughter loves tie-dying tee shirts. We anticipate this activity as it has become one of our favorite traditions to do together while staying at the beach. Finally the day arrives for Abby to use her creative skills by designing a unique shirt she will cherish for a long time to come.
She decides on the pin-wheel design and I help her place rubber bands tightly on the dampened shirt. Abby quickly picks green and blue, her favorites, as the colors of choice for the shirt and begins squeezing the vibrant colors out of the bottles. At first, she squeezes out only a small amount of the dye but then quickly decides this isn’t to her liking.
My daughter continues squirting more and more color onto the article of clothing.
“Be careful, Abby. You don’t want to use so much dye that it all just runs together. Then it will just make a blurry mess,” I warn.
But she doesn’t heed my warning. Abby proceeds to squeeze, pour, and drop the colors onto her shirt, saturating every available fiber of material. Finally, she uses every single drop of pigment in the bottle and is satisfied with her creation. She has so much dye on the shirt it drips heavily as we place it in a plastic bag for safe keeping for the next twenty-four hours.
As it turns out, Abby knows best when it comes to tie-dying shirts. Her new article of clothing turns out to be a magnificent, saturated work of art. The blue and green colors swirl perfectly together making wonderful circular patterns all over the garment. The pigments flow beautifully together creating a sea of endless pinwheels dancing in unison with each other. It is absolutely gorgeous.
While thinking about the tie-dying adventure, I marvel at how much Abby’s soaked tee shirt reminds me of how I want my heart to be. I desire my heart and soul to be completely saturated with God’s words by studying, pondering, reflecting, and praying over the Scriptures.
I aspire my heart will be like the shirt, soaking up all the spiritual dye the Bible has to offer. I want to be totally absorbent, like a sponge of sorts, with no tissue of my heart left untouched by God’s presence and love. Only then, when I am totally immersed, can I become the masterpiece God created me to be. As my heart is saturated with God’s words, wisdom, and guidance, I can’t help but drip out His unceasing love onto others by my thoughts, actions, and speech. A saturated heart for the Lord is surely God’s most treasured work of art.
Is your heart fully saturated for the Lord?
How can your heart “drip” love onto the relationships in your life today?
“Heavenly Father, You are my Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, and Friend. Thank You for giving me a heart that loves You and desires to be close to You. Place an urgency in me to confess any sin that is preventing my heart from being totally bathed in Your love, kindness, and guidance. Please help me to live my life so that I glorify You in all I say and do. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”
By Alisha Ritchie
Used by Permission
Further Reading
• An Unearthly Love – by Max Lucado
• Giving Fear an Eviction Notice – A Devotional by Karen Woodard
• A Love Story – written by a man. by Norm Miller
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