Side by Side (eBook)

We Are Needy

Life Is Hard

Our Hearts Are Busy

Hard Circumstances Meet Busy Hearts

Sin Weighs a Lot

Say “Help” to the Lord

Say “Help” to Other People

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Our Hearts Are Busy

The circumstances of life are easy to understand, but it is at the center of these—our hearts—where things get complicated. Our hearts are always stirring with activity. They guide our thoughts and actions as we interact with all our circumstances: our body, our relationships, our work, spiritual beings and the world, and God. Here in the heart we find the very essence of who we are. Our hearts are seen most readily through our emotions but are also expressed in the good—and the bad—that we do. And our connection to God resides here. Yes, our hearts are busy.

Since Scripture itself is so interested in our hearts, it uses a rich and varied vocabulary to identify this controlling center of life. Spirit, soul, heart, mind, inner person, and conscience are the most familiar terms. Each of those words has a particular emphasis, but they have one thing in common. They all identify our spiritual center, that is, how we are connected to God, at all times, whether we know it or not.

It is tough to picture something you cannot see, and you cannot see the actual heart, but Scripture does provide images and analogies such as a fountainhead, a well, a tree, and a treasure chest.1

These pictures capture how our hearts work behind the scenes, quietly determining the course of our lives, and have much more to do with God than we might realize. They can also be brought into the light and examined. One way to do that is by following our emotions.

Emotions Come from the Heart

Our emotions are our first response to the world around us. They appear without any apparent thought. Yet they are much more than mere reactions in that they say more about us than they do about our circumstances. Our emotions, it turns out, reveal what is most dear to us (e.g., Pss. 25:17; 45:1). That’s why our emotions identify us. They are us. We recognize our friends by their passions and emotional responses. When our friends’ emotions are blunted by head injury or intensified by side effects of medication, we say that they are not themselves. Our emotions point out those things that are most important to us.

When happy, we possess something we love; when anxious, something we love is at risk; when despondent, something we love has been lost; when angry, something we love is being stolen or kept from us.

Or look at guilt and shame. We might not say that they reveal what we love, but they certainly reveal what is dear to us. When we feel shame, we feel as though someone has taken off our human covering and left us naked. It separates us from relationships, and relationships are dear to us. When guilty, we feel like our relationship with God is potentially in jeopardy, and this relationship gets to matters of life and death.

What is most important to us? What do we love? What is most dear to us?2 We shouldn’t be surprised that these questions get to the core of our being. They also point to where we are headed. All roads eventually lead to our relationship with God. Do we love what he loves? Is he most dear to us?

So track down those strong feelings, first in yourself and then in others. When do you notice yourself getting excited? What are your joys? Your sorrows? Watch friends light up when they talk about a child, a spouse, a musical group, Jesus, work, or a sport. We will hear them slow down when touching on something that is especially hard, as if they were suddenly carrying a weight. We might notice a flash of anger: “I will never be like my father.” If we are trusted, we might hear of fears, hidden pain, and shame—matters that we prefer to keep private.

We could sum up our emotions this way: they usually proceed from our hearts, are given shape by our bodies, reflect the quality of our relationships, bear the etchings of both the goodness and the meaninglessness of work, provide a peek into how we fare in spiritual battle, and identify what we really believe about God.

One qualification: we could say that emotions usually reflect what is happening in our hearts. Occasionally, since emotions are given shape by our bodies, emotions can be unpredictable assaults that come from disordered bodies and unruly brains.

Depression, for example, might say that something loved is now lost, life has lost meaning and purpose, or something desired will never be possessed. But depression could also say, “Something is not right in my body or brain.”

In other words, strong emotions are a time to ask, “What is my heart really saying? What do I live for that I do not have?” But we might not get clear answers to those questions. Sometimes depression is simply physical suffering. It says, “I feel as though I am numb inside.” Either way—and this is important—difficult emotions are always a time to get help and pray for endurance in faith. A depressed person is suffering, and suffering leaves us spiritually vulnerable. It raises questions about God’s goodness and care, and it whispers that we must have done something bad to deserve such suffering. Emotional suffering needs spiritual encouragement.

Good Comes from the Heart

Now let’s go a little deeper. Our emotions can be right on the surface and obvious to us. But farther in is everything we would call “good.”

This good, like our emotions, still expresses what we love and desire. But it points even more obviously to God. For example, parents love their children. That love, whether or not parents know it, reflects the love of God for his children, and it is good. There is good in every human being. Even the blatant narcissist has a softer, good side if we look closely enough. Since God created us, and created things always bear some quality of their creator, we are able to see good things in one another. It comes in so many forms:

• Neighbors help each other.
• Strangers return lost wallets.
• Employees work hard, even when the boss is on vacation.
• Spouses acknowledge when they are wrong.
• Car mechanics are honest.

When goodness is our response to Jesus—when we do good because of him—it can also be called “obedience,” “faith,” or an “expression of our love for God.” This goodness is especially beautiful when hardships seem to rain on us, and, in response, we turn to the Lord rather than away from him. The good shines brightest in weakness. This is the essence of faith, and it compels our admiration. Anything we do because of Jesus—love, work, endure, hope—is very good.

Our eye for God’s reflected goodness is important in the way we help, and we will come back to it over and over. Help includes seeing what is good in another person.

Bad Comes from the Heart

All, of course, is not well. Our hearts can be good, but they can also be very bad. They are both at the same time.

Although we prefer to keep this reality under wraps, there is little disagreement about the badness resident in every heart. We all know that we do wrong. We love ourselves more than we love others. Selfishness and pride are part of everyday life:

• Parents demean and tear down their children.
• Neighbors gossip.
• Employees defraud employers.
• Men love pornography more than they love their spouses.
• Contractors charge for unnecessary work.

Yet while we all acknowledge the bad within us, we are less willing to acknowledge that it is sin. Sin means that our badness is primarily directed against God, and most people are not consciously shaking their fist at God. Instead, we are not thinking about him at all. So how can bad behavior be sin?

This is where things get murky, and we need the light that Scripture brings. Though we live before God, we are not always conscious of God. When a teen violates a parent’s directions, it doesn’t always feel like an act of rebellion against the parent. It typically feels simpler—the teen just wants to do what he or she wants to do. The disobedience is “nothing personal,” but it is personal. The same is true for us. When we sin, it is against God, even if it doesn’t feel that way.

Then there is more conscious bad behavior. A man had to choose between cocaine and his wife: “It was clear to me that there wasn’t a choice. I love my wife, but I’m not going to choose anything over cocaine.”3

There is the heart in action. That man loves his desires above his wife. That’s clear. You know it, he knows it, and it is bad. Now peer just a little further in and...