Our devotional series is starting on season 8 of keeping the heart: the season of great trials. This is a time when very difficult life circumstances happen, whatever they may be. These can often be unexpected, and call for special diligence in keeping the heart. These are often also times of severe testing, which reveals the true nature of the heart. Here is Flavel on season 8:
The next season in which special exertion is necessary to keep the heart, is when we meet with great trials. In such cases the heart is apt to be suddenly transported with pride, impatience, or other sinful passions. Many good people are guilty of hasty and very sinful conduct in such instances; and all have need to use diligently the following means to keep their hearts submissive and patient under great trials.
Whenever we are tested, we need to make sure that our hearts do not go after other things, regardless of how much those things can tend to stick out to us during these times. Times of testing can surely knock our heart keeping off-balance if we are not grounded in Him. What, then, can help us to keep our hearts focused on God during these times?
1. Get humble and abasing thoughts of yourself. The humble is ever the patient man. Pride is the source of irregular and sinful passions. A lofty, will be an unyielding and peevish spirit. When we overrate ourselves, we think that we are treated unworthily, that our trials are too severe: thus we cavil and repine. Christian, you should have such thoughts of yourself as would put a stop to these murmurings. You should have lower and more humiliating views of yourself than any other one can have of you. Get humility, and you will have peace whatever be your trial.
Often the first thing to go when we face great trials and testing is our humility. We often feel driven to complain or murmur against God, as if we cannot trust in His providence! When this happens, our pride is rearing its ugly head. We come to think that we somehow deserve more than what we are getting, as if God should make a special exception for us. Yet, this becomes nothing more than presuming upon God’s grace. Grace is, by definition, something that is not deserved. If we ever got what we deserved, then we would be in hell and not on our way to heaven. The truth of the matter is that God does not slight us in the least when He puts us through great trials and testing. Rather, we ought to trust that He knows what He is doing, and this as a little child trusting in his father. To weather these great trials, our hearts need to cultivate humility. And there can be no greater way to do this than to contemplate on who God is (His attributes, power, holiness, and works) and who and what we are before Him (all we have is His grace).
2. Cultivate a habit of communion with God. This will prepare you for whatever may take place. This will so sweeten your temper and calm your mind as to secure you against surprisals. This will produce that inward peace which will make you superior to your trials. Habitual communion with God will afford you enjoyment, which you can never be willing to interrupt by sinful feeling. When a Christian is calm and submissive under his afflictions, probably he derives support and comfort in this way; but he who is discomposed, impatient, or fretful, shows that all is not right within—he cannot be supposed to practise communion with God.
Someone who is in communion with God has his life oriented around God’s ways and obedience to His commands from the heart. The words of Psalm 119 show this attitude of the heart perfectly. Consider reading all of Psalm 119. For the moment, think about how the psalmist is cultivating a heart after God as you read. Consider also that the psalmist was also going through a trial when this was written. Communion with God is the Christian’s lifeline, and the way of keeping your heart on Him.
1 How happy are those whose way is blameless,
who live according to the Lord’s instruction!
2 Happy are those who keep His decrees
and seek Him with all their heart.
3 They do nothing wrong;
they follow His ways.
4 You have commanded that Your precepts
be diligently kept.
5 If only my ways were committed
to keeping Your statutes!
6 Then I would not be ashamed
when I think about all Your commands.
7 I will praise You with a sincere heart
when I learn Your righteous judgments.
8 I will keep Your statutes;
never abandon me.9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By keeping Your word.
10 I have sought You with all my heart;
don’t let me wander from Your commands.
11 I have treasured Your word in my heart
so that I may not sin against You.
12 Lord, may You be praised;
teach me Your statutes.
13 With my lips I proclaim
all the judgments from Your mouth.
14 I rejoice in the way revealed by Your decrees
as much as in all riches.
15 I will meditate on Your precepts
and think about Your ways.
16 I will delight in Your statutes;
I will not forget Your word.17 Deal generously with Your servant
so that I might live;
then I will keep Your word.
18 Open my eyes so that I may contemplate
wonderful things from Your instruction.
19 I am a stranger on earth;
do not hide Your commands from me.
20 I am continually overcome
with longing for Your judgments.
21 You rebuke the proud,
the ones under a curse,
who wander from Your commands.
22 Take insult and contempt away from me,
for I have kept Your decrees.
23 Though princes sit together speaking against me,
Your servant will think about Your statutes;
24 Your decrees are my delight
and my counselors.25 My life is down in the dust;
give me life through Your word.
26 I told You about my life,
and You listened to me;
teach me Your statutes.
27 Help me understand
the meaning of Your precepts
so that I can meditate on Your wonders.
28 I am weary from grief;
strengthen me through Your word.
29 Keep me from the way of deceit
and graciously give me Your instruction.
30 I have chosen the way of truth;
I have set Your ordinances before me.
31 I cling to Your decrees;
Lord, do not put me to shame.
32 I pursue the way of Your commands,
for You broaden my understanding.33 Teach me, Lord, the meaning of Your statutes,
and I will always keep them.
34 Help me understand Your instruction,
and I will obey it
and follow it with all my heart.
35 Help me stay on the path of Your commands,
for I take pleasure in it.
36 Turn my heart to Your decrees
and not to material gain.
37 Turn my eyes
from looking at what is worthless;
give me life in Your ways.
38 Confirm what You said to Your servant,
for it produces reverence for You.
39 Turn away the disgrace I dread;
indeed, Your judgments are good.
40 How I long for Your precepts!
Give me life through Your righteousness.
This whole psalm is a prayer for God to help the psalmist keep his heart on Him. The psalmist is seeking greater and greater communion with God through making his whole life about obeying Him from his whole heart. Our daily communion should be no less than that aim.
3. Let your mind be deeply impressed with an apprehension of the evil nature and effects of an unsubmissive and restless temper. It grieves the Spirit of God, and induces his departure. His gracious presence and influence are enjoyed only where peace and quiet submission prevail. The indulgence of such a temper gives the adversary an advantage. Satan is an angry and discontented spirit. He finds no rest but in restless hearts. He bestirs himself when the spirits are in commotion; sometimes he fills the heart with ungrateful and rebellious thoughts; sometimes he inflames the tongue with indecent language. Again, such a temper brings great guilt upon the conscience, unfits the soul for any duty, and dishonors the Christian name. O keep your heart, and let the power and excellence of your religion be chiefly manifested when you are brought into the greatest straits.
The very opposite of keeping the heart is lacking submission to God’s commandments. One may appear to be obeying Him on the outside but still be as a rotting corpse on the inside (an accusation Christ made against the Pharisees). Nothing stifles the Spirit in a person more than cultivating communion with wickedness. And we are either cultivating one or the other! Which is it in you? As soon as you cease growing in your communion with God, then it cannot be doubted that you are now cultivating wickedness in your heart. There is no neutral ground, just as any division of loyalty to God still constitutes a division! Jesus Himself taught that a man must be singularly devoted to Him, with all else counting as wickedness and double-mindedness. The whole of our lives are rightfully God’s, and this includes every aspect and part. There is no neutrality in our walk with God.
Next time we will be looking at three more helps for the season of great trials.