Keeping Your Heart Right With God.

​Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14


I recently listened to an Allen Jackson sermon about getting your heart right with God. Pastor Allen emphasized that unless we have our hearts aligned with the Father, He cannot use us. Think about that in your daily walk, if you're not aligned with God's plan, how can He direct you in His ways? This also applies to the safety ministry. If we are guided by our own thoughts, egos, or having a bad day, and our hearts are on us and not the Father, we might misjudge a situation He has put before us, and we can’t afford that in our ministry.

While being a street sergeant I witness many situations where officers brought their personal issue into work, included myself. We were always trained to leave the crisis at home, not to bring it to work because it always put our judgements at risk. Worried about a relationship that might be going bad, and it might be difficult to be unbiased on a family disturbance call. Worried about finances and you infuse your anger against a guy driving a sports car worth over two years of your salary. Feeling like your world is falling apart and you miss the gun the guy had hidden in his pants, putting everyone in danger. We trained all the time that we had to leave our problems at home or run the risk of losing our job or even our lives.

I remember getting a call about a traffic accident where the officer in charge was being rude to everyone on the scene. When I pulled up I noticed paramedics working on several children who appeared to have cuts and bruises all over their bodies. I also saw an old Ford Pinto that had been destroyed. I was wondering how anyone had survived the crash.

Getting out of my patrol unit I noticed the officer in charge yelling at the adult driver. He was threatening her, saying he was going to put the her in jail, and all the children, who appeared to be hers, were going to be taken from her and given to Child Protective Services. As I approached the officer, he looked up and he went off on me about what was going on. 
 
“Explain to me why I shouldn’t put her in jail and have CPS take the kids, she is not responsible and could have gotten all these kids killed?” he shouted at me.
 
I took him to the side and told him I was going to relieve him of this accident, and he needed to go to his car and meet me back at the station so we could talk about his actions. The way he looked at me and I could see the anger in his face and felt there for a moment he was going to hit me, but then I saw the tears well up in his eyes. One of his kids had been hurt in an accident where the driver shouldn’t have been on the road and here right in front of him, it was happening again. He had let his emotions get the better of him and even though I understood his ager, we couldn’t allow him to take it out on a mother that was in dire straights herself. You see when our hearts are full of junk from our personal lives, sometimes we can’t see the person that is crying for help right in front of us.  The female had a driver’s seat, all other seats had been removed, the tags were expired, and it had failed inspection. To top it all off, she had pulled out in front of another car.

“Explain to me why I shouldn’t put her in jail and have CPS take the kids, she is not responsible and could have gotten all these kids killed?” he shouted at me.
 
I took him to the side and told him I was going to relieve him of this accident, and he needed to go to his car and meet me back at the station so we could talk about his actions. The way he looked at me and I could see the anger in his face and felt there for a moment he was going to hit me, but then I saw the tears well up in his eyes. One of his kids had been hurt in an accident where the driver shouldn’t have been on the road and here right in front of him, it was happening again. He had let his emotions get the better of him and even though I understood his ager, we couldn’t allow him to take it out on a mother that was in dire straights herself. You see when our hearts are full of junk from our personal lives, sometimes we can’t see the person that is crying for help right in front of us.

So when we have those moments, our best move is to turn the “junk” over to the Lord and let Him be our strength. Lean in on Him to not only help us with the situation we are in but also show the compassion He did with the sinners He met during His walk on earth. Relying on Him, He will open our eyes and minds, showing us how to respond to the situation in front of us.
 
How does this relate to church safety? Deacon Richard Pryor saw a truck doing donuts in his church's driveway. He was running late and wanted to get into church; it was the weekend after Vacation Bible School, and he wanted to see what all the kids had been doing.  There were probably 100 things on his mind, but his heart was right with God. When he sees the truck move over to the other side of the church, instead of asking “What’s your problem, pal!” like I probably would have said. He pulled up next to the truck, and asked the driver these questions ‘Hey, boss, are you okay? Is everything all right?’ I don't know if that would have been my response, knowing my demeanor. Yet Pryor's heart was right with God to ask that simple question, "Are you okay?" and because of his actions, the shooter’s first target was shooting the outside of the church and not Pryor.  Maybe it was the way Pryor spoke to him that he didn't shoot Pryor first, yet he pointed his weapon at the church.  So God spared Pryor so that He could use him to disable the shooter by hitting him with his truck.  Pryor even said that he "felt a divine call to act." That is because his heart was right with God.


It doesn’t matter if you are in law enforcement or church safety, the principle is the same: A heart aligned with God sees people, not just problems. It listens before reacting. It protects without losing compassion. If we keep our hearts right with Him, our actions will follow, and we’ll be ready when He calls.

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