"the glory of God is man fully alive."

"Everything you love is what makes a life worth living. . . A life filled with loving is a life most like the one that God lives, which is life as it was meant to be (look). And loving requires a heart alive and awake and free. . .

You cannot be the person God meant you to be, and you cannot live the life he meant you to live, unless you live from the heart. . . Your heart is your most precious possession. Without your heart you cannot have God. Without your heart you cannot have love. Without your heart you cannot have faith. Without your heart you cannot find the work that you were meant to do. In other words, without your heart you cannot have life.

Above all else, you must care for your heart.

If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. A canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus without loss to itself [it shares] its superabundant water. -Bernard of Clairvaux

did you know that God gives out of the abundance of his heart? Paul prays in Ephesians 3, 'I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you', which is to say, out of the riches God has stored up in his great heart, he gives to ours. Dallas Willard reminds us,

 He is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink [Willard includes the sea in all its beauty, or a wonderful movie, or music]. . . God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness.

What does your heart need? In some sense it's a personal question, unique to our makeup and what brings us life. . . Yet there are some needs that all hearts have in common. We need beauty; that's clear enough from the fact that God has filled the world with it. We need to drink beauty in wherever we get it- in music, in nature, in art, in a great meal shared. These are all gifts to us from God's generous heart.

Be kind to yourself. Take care of your heart. You're going to need it."

a sweet morning encouragement-

taken from Waking the Dead, by John Eldredge