I’m looking at my week today. I’m just sitting here on this side of Monday thinking – what stories will unfold before next Monday comes? How will I step into the miracles of grace God has authored this week? What will those joyful moments look like and when will I do battle in the moments of temptation? What treasures are waiting to be discovered in the most unlikely of places?

I’m still on this side of Monday, just barely, and I’m ushering it in with Sandra McCracken’s song, “Dynamite” because I guess I want to think on the weight of another regular week. Yes, life goes on – an unsteady rhythm in an unsteady and shifting world that somehow feels routine. Another 9 am start to another five day week that’s about to happen… and these lines are breaking in to shake me free of going through the Monday motions.

You may not be in a place to imagine anything this morning, and if that’s the case you might want to come back and read this later because McCracken paints a picture you are meant to see in your mind’s eye.

“The heart takes what it wants, like dynamite.”

Dynamite is not a gentle thing – not a pleasant or friendly thing. It is unforgiving and indiscriminate in its destruction. And this is the image McCracken uses to talk about the heart: dynamite. That’s ugly.

I don’t like to think about my heart like destruction – the kind that thunders and smokes and overwhelms. I don’t like to think about a lot of ugly things. On this side of Monday, I am thinking about how desire is lit like dynamite.

“Those who have ears, as the smoke it clears, will see things as they are
To bend the will, you first must change the heart.”

But I’m also thinking about the moments before destruction is guaranteed – those moments when the will can still be bent by a change of heart.

Where are those moments in my today?
When will my heart race to take what it wants this week?

Oh, I know there will be many times. My heart is fickle and fragile and forgetting. I want things I’ll never admit to wanting and this week will not be any different than last week.

But, maybe if I know my desire like dynamite, I will listen for a different sound.

“Will we choose the noise of our desire or the hope that makes no sound?”

Maybe, I will choose to say “Yes!” to all the promises God has given me in Christ – all the ways He has provided the power to bend the will of my flesh by the change of my heart. Destruction is not unavoidable. The noise of desire is not so deafening that the silent sound of hope cannot penetrate it. A hope that does not disappoint (Romans 5) is as brilliant and as sure as this morning’s sun.

In 2 Corinthians 1:20 we read, “All the promises of God find their ‘Yes!’ in Christ.”

The God of creation sees our desire like dynamite and yet still offers a hearty and infallible YES in the person of Christ, who secures every promise God has ever given. Within this profound security, we can say “Yes!” to those promises – to the hope that makes no sound.

We can walk out this week in a way that doesn’t leave destruction in our wake.

I am reading through Future Grace by John Piper and this particular post is inspired by his words in Chapter 7 as well as Sandra McCracken’s song.