You may have picked up on the fact that the Bible and the modern world sometimes look at things differently. As one example, consider how differently they talk about the “heart” of man. These days, we refer to “heart” as the place of emotions, especially feelings of tenderness. “Hey Sis, you’ve been on my heart.” That is, I’ve been thinking fondly of you. Or, “I [heart] Tonia,” meaning that Tonia causes a rush of emotions to sweep over me (with “fear” at the vanguard!).
Whereas when the Scriptures reference the heart, it’s to speak about the center of the person. The control panel which, yes, includes an “emotion” lever, but also one marked “goals,” and another “will,” and another, “reasoning,” and yet another “conscience.” The heart is the helm where life’s direction is set. The boardroom where decisions happen. The town square where all the internal traffic runs through. If the human is likened to a house, the heart is the kitchen. What happens (or doesn’t) in the kitchen has an effect on the whole person. “Keep your heart with all vigilance/ for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov 4:23).
In short, the heart is the real you, which is often different than the you known by others. “The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy” (Proverbs 13: 10). No human is completely fathomed by another. “Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody” – Mark Twain. When our son Kai returned from basic training, he expressed some light frustration with explaining to civilians what he had just gone through. Even if we wanted to, none of us could really understood what went down during those 10 weeks.
Let me try to tell you what it’s like to be a pastor from the west living in the east who stutters. You see? At our heart, we all have chambers that will not be opened by another, even a “soulmate.” If we insist on total sympathy, if we demand to be fully known by another, we’ll just be frustrated. Our heart is just too deep to be thoroughly understood.
And that even to ourselves. “The heart is deceitful above all things…who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Even we cannot penetrate to our own real selves. Who really are we? Is the real Colin the guy on Sunday preaching the Word from the pulpit or the one at various times in the week scheming to make himself appreciated, look good…actually better than others? [Do you like this blog? Do you? Do you? Pant pant pant]
C.S. Lewis once wrote a poem that begins: Lord, hear my voice, my present voice I mean/ Not that which may be speaking an hour hence/ (For I am Legion). Then a few lines down: Condescend to the pretense/ That what speaks now is I… He’s asking God to pay attention to what he’s saying now as he prays, and to ignore the [possibly ugly, banal, tawdry, insincere] things he’ll be saying an hour from now. Then he asks: would you please pretend and then act on the pretense that the CS Lewis praying now is the real CS Lewis? (And ignore the person I’ll be an hour from now.)
We all understand the feeling! I think I’m being sincere in this moment, but experience has taught me that later on I’ll feel differently, feel less, think differently… So, again, will the real Colin Landry please stand up? Which one is he, at heart?
Well, I can’t say for sure, for I am Legion, and the heart is deceitful above all things.
So, what do we have so far? 1) The heart is the center of a person, the real you. And 2) no one, including ourselves, truly knows us at heart. Now equipped with this knowledge about the important yet impenetrable heart, what do we do? What could we do? Since our heart is so hidden, it sounds like we might just need to leave it alone and hope for the best.
But no – even without fully understanding it, we are a) to direct our heart. And we are b) to act from the heart. And we are c) to pray for our heart. We’ll discuss these things next time.
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