You know how water beads up on a freshly waxed car? The wax, creates a barrier, keeping the water from permeating the car’s surface. I recently read a quote from Ann Spangler and this image popped in my mind. “I find it easier to absorb the harsher sounding passages in the Bible…Somehow, the tender words seem to roll right off me, much like water that beads up and rolls off a well-waxed automobile.” (The Tender Words of God)

This quote made my mind jump and I grabbed my pen and paper. Is my heart, your heart, like a well-waxed car? Does God’s word, his Spirit, bead up and roll off of it, keeping his message and strength from permeating your heart and soul? Does it keep his words from changing you? Permeate is defined by words like, infiltrate, saturate and charge. Is God’s word, His Spirit, saturating your heart? Is your life—the battery of your soul—charged by God’s Spirit? I know at times I feel like mine isn’t. As I read these words, and I really started to think about their meaning, I found that they ring true. If I want to find the peace of Jesus, I must let his words saturate my soul and then I will find the nourishment, energy, and that exuberance, that I feel I am missing.

My word of the year for 2021 is “Abide”. I chose that word because I wanted to focus on how God can abide in me. But how can I make that happen, if I haven’t removed the wax that covers my heart? Psalm 119:11, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Philippians 4:7, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

I have come to realize that I cannot achieve this on my own, in my own strength. I am jaded, cynical, and critical in nature. That is not the nature that I want, and I am working hard to change. But, wanting to change and making it happen will take a power that is way beyond myself. I must set aside my “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality, and humbly go before the throne, asking God to remove the obstacle, the wax, that covers my heart.  As David begged the Lord for forgiveness after his affair with Bathsheba, Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

I ask that God make my heart like a sponge. When you place a sponge in a glass of liquid, it quickly absorbs everything that surrounds it. My prayer, my request to God—make my heart like a sponge that will soak up your words, your Spirit. Take away the wax that has built up over my heart, covering it, and keeping you from permeating my life. Amen-

For the word of God is alive an active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joins and marrow;
it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
-Hebrews 4:12