🎵Proverbs 21: When God Weighs Hearts
Do you suppose that most people who misbehave think they are doing anything wrong? It seems to me that even those who know they are doing something evil (like taking revenge on someone) only do so because they somehow feel justified. Proverbs Chapter 21 begins with talking about the King’s heart being in God’s hands and following His direction. Then it goes to other men and says…
Proverbs 21:2 WEBUS
[2] Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but Yahweh weighs the hearts.
https://bible.com/bible/206/pro.21.2.WEBUS
The juxtaposition of the two types makes sense because the wise king who’s writing most of these proverbial instructions is trying to lead people by God’s direction. Even if he later fails and begins his own ways of doing right in his eyes instead of God’s, it doesn’t change the wisdom that real leadership works best when it’s in God’s hands. And it doesn’t change the wisdom that God weighs the heart and motives underlying the thoughts and behaviors.
But because of Calvary, we now know that God doesn’t stop with weighing hearts. He doesn’t see a pain-hardened heart with a jagged rock in the middle of it and just give up and throw it away. Instead, He offers the one suffering from a heavy heart an opportunity to let Him remake it into a tender heart of flesh.
Until putting this post together, I’d been reading all those verses showing the differences between righteous people and fools with a bit of judgment toward those who make foolish decisions and then pay foolish prices. It may be how it’s written, but I want to take this moment to look at every one of those differently; followed by a but it doesn’t have to stay this way thought process. Because, with the mercy and grace found in the holy blood of Jesus Christ shed at Calvary for you and me, we are no longer destined to be stuck in unrighteousness. We don’t have to be a king to put our hearts in the capable hands of The King of Kings and let Him direct us like He directs the rivers and oceans.
Verse 7 tells us…
Proverbs 21:7 WEBUS
[7] The violence of the wicked will drive them away, because they refuse to do what is right.
https://bible.com/bible/206/pro.21.7.WEBUS
So we know they refuse to do right because they already think they are doing right. And when being driven away causes the pain of rejection, the stone in the heart gets a little harder and sharper, and the person makes even more wrong decisions that bring even more rejection. It becomes a cycle that threatens to trap the heart in heaviness forever. But God looks deeper than others can see, or we can see about ourselves. We may feel burdened by the idea of God weighing our hearts when He may just be checking what needs to be done to fix things. Using the pottery metaphor, He’s finding out how much water to add to make the clay pliable again and soften it enough to pull the rock away like in the image above.
The Psalmist says…
Psalms 51:10 WEBUS
[10] Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
https://bible.com/bible/206/psa.51.10.WEBUS
And we can sing with the Maranatha singers, Change My Heart, Oh God and know that He will do it.
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