Deuteronomy 4:29: But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.

I have an elderly passenger who is a regular on my disability bus.  After every time I drive her I have to go to God seeking forgiveness for being so nasty to her.  She is just one of those disagreeable people that knows what button to push to send you off your launching pad.  I tell myself, “She is not going to get to me today, I’m ready for her, I’m prayed up.” But the moment she gets on my bus she pushes that first button. Today instead of  “Hi, how are you.”  It was “Why are you wearing the stupid baseball cap?”  I’m proud of that cap, I wear it to remind myself that I am always in the presence of God, but it didn’t work today, she just went ahead an lit my boiler fire and I forgot all about the reason I wear that cap.

But I was ready today. Last time she rode my bus she complained about the music I had on my IPOD, so I asked her what songs she liked and I downloaded them. Enough songs to keep her busy the whole trip so she did not have to crab at me.  One song is a real oldie written by Buck Ram and made famous by the Platters called Only You.  I actually heard the old goat in the back of my bus singing along with this song.  You know, take away the crabbiness and she has a voice that doesn’t sound half bad. I was so impressed I started to listened to the lyrics and was thankful I was wearing sunglasses because I just could not help but think of God and everything started to get misty.  I hit the replay which the old bitty didn’t mind one bit because I wanted to hear it again and sing it as my prayer to the God I love:

Only you can make this world seem right
Only you can make the darkness bright
Only you and you alone
can thrill me like you do
and fill my heart with love for only you

Only you can make this change in me
for it’s true, you are my destiny
When you hold my hand
I understand the magic that you do

You’re my dream come true
my one and only you
Maybe the town sorehead thinks she knows what buttons to push to make me lose my balance but God knows how to rewire those buttons to get me back on balance.  One is rewiring job is found in Deuteronomy 4:29 and when I am reminded that my life’s primary goal is to know God and His heart, and that this sour old prune faced lady is part of the solution, I gain a new perspective. I took a good look at this bitter old woman and saw her wipe away tears as she sang along with the Platters.  Her husband passed away a few years ago, as well as her son. There had been someone in her life who once made her world seem right, who could make her darkness bright. Now she has no one and is lashing out at the world for dealing her a lousy deck of cards. I realized but for the grace of God go I.  But I have someone in my life who can thrill me and fill my heart with love only for Him. He is my destiny and when He holds my hand I do understand.  So I hit the replay button a second time and this time I join my disagreeable passenger in singing this song with her. When we finished she said: “You have an awful voice, it ruins the whole song.” Bless her crummy little heart, I was still able to remain joyful for the whole trip, because I was reminded that I had found the heart of God. The God I sought for with all my heart and with all my soul and the fact that I did not disable my IPOD to show this insulting woman I was in control of that bus proves I had touched the heart of God.

You know something, in looking closely at Deuteronomy 4:29, I found that the preposition with in with all your heart and with all your soul is not in the Hebrew text.  In front of the word all is a Beth.  Beth is more commonly rendered as in or on, but using the preposition with is not unheard of. Ending a sentence with a preposition is.     Yet, every English translation I have read always uses the word with.

As my obnoxious passenger settled back listening to the Platters sing Twilight Time, I began to ponder this preposition. Just between God and I, the word with does not fit like the word in and I think I am being more true to the text by using the common rendering of the Beth as: In all your heart rather than with all your heart. To render this with all your heart would imply that you are searching for him outside your heart, in nature, in  sermons, in pictures etc.  Yet, to say we search for Him in all our heart, would then mean that our search is not in libraries, churches, teachings but is in our hearts where God resides.  No sermon, no books or teachings could have brought me that time of peace in the presence of a sour puss. It had to be a work of God in my heart.

I remember how my study partner pointed out that there are many rooms to our hearts.   When we search for God in every room of our heart, we are acknowledging that God occupies every room of our heart. I had to invite him into the that part of my heart reserved for my bitterness toward this lady. Only when He occupied it could he lift that burden of bitterness. Note too that we must search him in all our souls. The heart and soul covers every part of our being. A crabby passenger affects my heart and soul. Even in this situation I must search my heart and soul to find God.  If I am searching for the heart of God, I do not believe it was an accident that I was assigned the town grouch, she was really an angel (messenger of God) unaware that God sent so He could visit that room in my heart that I had locked the door to and shut Him out. Once I opened that door and let Him in I found peace even with the most disagreeable person in the world.

So you may find your world crashing down around you. He is not answering your deepest prayers, the sheriff is at the door, the movers have the furniture loaded and you scream out: “God where are you.” Search your heart, you may find him in the recreation room of your heart playing a little game, or in the garage tooling around with a repair project. The key is just let Him go about His business as if He owns your heart, because, you know what?  He really does and He is performing major renovations.

As I helped carry the oxygen tank of my angel on assignment to her front door and opened the door for her because her arthritis was so bad she could not even put the key in the lock, she looked up at me and for the first time I saw a smile. You ever get that feeling that someone is looking at you but they are not?  That is the way I felt, she wasn’t smiling at me. I think Jesus just stuck his head outside the garage door of my heart where he was repairing something and said: “Ok, my little angel unaware, push that button again, I think I’ve got it working the right way this time.

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to God be the glory forever, Amen.  Romans 11:36.