To Embrace a Porcupine

I was watching "My Friends Tigger and Pooh" this afternoon, if you've never seen it, it's very cute. On this episode the character Porcupine had a pen pal, the pen pal wrote saying he was coming to visit and couldn't wait to give Porcupine a hug. This was a horrible thing for Porcupine because, well, being a porcupine she wasn't very huggable. Poor Porcupine tried to find a way to make herself huggable but found nothing. At last she decides that it would be better to simply not meet her pen pal rather than deal with the embarrassment of her quills. 

How many of us are just like Porcupine? We hear about Jesus and want to know Him more intimately, we want to let Him hug us, if you will, but we're too ashamed of who we are. We try to pray a little more, go to church every week, join bible studies, raise our hands in worship, you name it, if we think it'll make us more acceptable to God, we try it. But those things are not what God is looking for or at. 

"Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7

You see, none of those things matter if our hearts are not right before Him. We could go to church every week and still not know the Lover of our soul. God longs for so much more than a superficial relationship with us. Those things may look good on the outside, people may think you are the greatest God-lover that ever lived, but it's what's in our heart that matters. 

At the moment what's in our hearts may be ugly, broken, dark and wounded and that's ok. God still wants our heart. You may think your heart is unrepairable, hard as a rock, impenatrable, God still wants your heart. There is no sin, no hurt, no damage beyond the grasp of our Father's merciful, healing touch. But we have to willingly surrender our hearts and give ourselves over to Him - brokenness and all. 

When Porcupine's pen pal showed up everyone was surprised, relieved and joyous to discover that he was a turtle.

You see, what Porcupine saw as a barrier between her and her dear friend turned out to really be nothing, her quills were no match for Turtle's shell. And likewise, whatever we see as a barrier between us and our Savior is truly no match for His cleansing blood and redeeming love. 

So don't run and hide, rather seek Him, go after Him with all your heart (yes, all your heart) and He will be found with open arms and you will never regret it.