The Telltale Heart

Do You Listen to Your Heart, or Does it Listen to You?

Have you ever realised that Disney princess films and pop love songs have the same mantra? Think about it, they all whisper the same line: listen to your heart. There is even a classic 80's song by that name. Some of the lines are as follows:

Sometimes you wonder if this fight is worthwhile
The precious moments are all lost in the tide, yeah
They're swept away and nothing is what it seems,
the feeling of belonging to your dreams

Listen to your heart
when he's calling for you 
Listen to your heart
there's nothing else you can do...

 There is nothing else you can do... Really? Are we simply trapped in the dichotomy of listening to our hearts or listening to outside opinions? As with most dichotomies presented to us, this one is false. We do not have to listen to our hearts to be happy (happiness is temporary, anyway), nor do we have to live under someone else's idea of success. When life does not go as planned, when we feel the pressure of needing to achieve the American dream, or we feel miserable because we have not achieved some idea of love, success, and affluence, we absolutely should not listen to our hearts. We should not listen to the world, or even well-meaning Christians breathing out 'feel better' pop psychology.

What other option do we have, if we ought not listen to the world or to our hearts? We need to tell our hearts. We need to speak Truth to our hearts and minds, even when we feel miserable.  The most oft quoted reason for unhappiness I hear from my friends is, "I don't have a boyfriend!" Is a spouse your idea of success? Have you made a good thing an idol? Do not wallow in the misery of what you have not. Speak Truth to your heart, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing," says the writer of Proverbs. Marriage is good. But if you are not married, then singleness is your garment of glory. 

I want you to be free from the concerns of this life. An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord’s work and thinking how to please him. But a married man has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife. His interests are divided. In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you. I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible.

 ~ St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 7

Perhaps you are in true lament, a valid thing for Christians to do. You are not wallowing, you are deeply lamenting the loss of a person, a dream, a good thing, or the way your relationship with God used to be. Speak Truth to your heart in this, too. Lamentation is not a sin, but in the midst of grieving, remind your heart to hope.

The valid lament: 

For I used to go with the multitude;
I went with them to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and praise,
With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

 The equally valid Truth spoken to the heart/soul:

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.

(Psalm 42:4-5, NKJV)

We may not be yet in the place where we have hope in God, and certainly not in a place of rejoicing. However, we must speak Truth to ourselves: hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, as the English Standard Version words it. The Psalmist is reminding his own heart of how he used to joyfully praise God. Yet it is no longer he who is so full of praise that he is at the head of the people going to God's house. Does he sit down an kick and scream? No, he tells his heart to hope in God, for at some point in the future he will again be able to Praise Him.

Perhaps you are in the midst of many crises all at once. I know many persons who are in that place - health troubles, family frustrations, financial crunches, and cars breaking down are just part of their stress. In that place I am tempted to say, "God, a little kindness, some ray of hope would be great right about now. Look at all I am going through, I deserve a little help." Yet I do not dare to believe that I deserve anything from God. All is gift, as a friend of mine told me recently. It is true, all is gift. I cannot win God's goodness or kindness. I cannot earn my redemption and salvation. I do not deserve any good thing from the hand of God. All He gives is a gift, and all I can do is to receive that gift with an open (not grasping) hand. This I must remind my heart, when it would rather think it was entitled to good things.


Finally, after you tell your heart what is True, do not become myopic. Do not dwell on how right you were and how wrong your friend was in an argument. Do not sit on the couch feeling overwhelmed when there is laundry to do, or dishes to wash. Speak Truth to your heart and then do something. Sometimes that means taking a long walk -- without a friend, phone, or iPod. Sometimes it means cleaning your house. And sometimes it means looking at the trees and the sky, simply listening to the silence.

~ Johanna

 

Vulnerability

Do you ever feel like you do not have what it takes? What exactly does it take to be a man, win a girl's heart, provide for yourself (or others), or to meet someone's standards?

My real question is, what are you hiding behind? When Adam and Eve disobeyed God they realised they were naked. In that moment they experienced a strange new feeling: the need to hide.

Webster's 1828 Dictionary defines naked as: discovered; unarmed; defenceless; open; exposed; having no means of defence or protection against an enemy's attack, or against other injury. Due to our current, almost exclusive, use of the word 'naked' to mean 'unclothed' we often substitute the word vulnerable to express those ideas.

Who do you allow to see you naked?

Who are you willing to allow to discover you, unarmed, defences down emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually? Is there anyone with whom you are always willing to be vulnerable? Someone who does not laugh at your deepest dreams, hurts, desires, feelings of failure, and lack of meeting standards (yours, theirs, or God's)?

Be honest.

We do not have what it takes. We withdraw from others, even God, at some point. There are times when we become uncomfortable and want to hide.

I will be honest. I hide behind my personality, my intellect, and my appearance. If I am friendly, fun to be around, cheerful, kind, and hopeful, then surely others will like me. In my general circle of friends if I am intelligent then I obviously have what it takes to be a well-respected, thinking Christian - or even a good member of society. If I shop at Goodwill but look classy, I will not appear as poor or uneducated. I am so afraid of people seeing through my façade of being a good Christian, a valuable member of humanity. I think that I can determine my own worth. Somehow I believe the authority to set the standards for what it takes to be good or valuable is mine.

But God.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5.8) God loved us when we were unlovable. God loved us when we spit in His face and ran the opposite way of His outstretched arms. God loved us when we did not have what it takes. God loved us when we were naked and vulnerable. And He still does.

"To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable."

~ C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

It is God Who makes us lovable. It is God Who has what it takes. It is God Who has the authority to set the standards, and God Who meets them. God was vulnerable enough to love us first. He was naked on a tree, spilling out his life blood to make His love visible.

~ Johanna

"I'm just being honest!"

*Note: If you don't have time to read all of this, skip to the Elisabeth Elliot quotation and following.


We live in a world, even a Christian subculture, that values 'honesty', 'genuineness', 'authenticity' and 'transparency'. I value all of those things a great deal. Yet I find that I value 'authenticity' more than I value refraining from gossip; 'genuine expression' more than not sinning in my anger (or my angry words); and I disregard building up the Body of Christ in favour of 'transparent' feelings about fellow Christians.

I am not alone in this strangely 'weighted' values system. Many other Christians are the same. We want to express our feelings, our emotions - even if in our anger we say untruths about someone. We desire to rationalise that we aren't really gossiping, we are just explaining the events (and persons involved) that hurt our feelings, frustrated us, etc.

Yesterday I was twice presented with the idea that honesty is not always the best policy.

I was listening to pastor Tim Keller talk about Removing Idols of the Heart, where he related the story of the forgiven prostitute who was kissing Jesus' feet at the house of Simon (the former leper). At one point in his illustration, Dr. Keller says that Simon wasn't more moral because he had been forgiven less than this woman (implying that he has sinned less). However, Keller's next statement caught my ear. He said that neither was the prostitute somehow more moral (according to our changed standards - as if we had the authority to do so) by being honest while Simon was a hypocrite.

In the afternoon I was reading Discipline: The Glad Surrender by Elisabeth Elliot where I came across a story that proved Mrs. Elliot-Gren does actually sin sometimes. She was speaking of her annoyance at a young woman, and at her husband's correction for letting her annoyance show. Her response was a running commentary of self-defence in her head. It was certainly 'honest' and 'genuine'.

Elisabeth Elliot went on to say,

" 'Reality' is often evil. There is a common belief that a frank expression of what one naturally feels and thinks is always good because it is 'honest'. This is not true. If the feelings and thoughts are wrong in themselves, how can expressing them verbally [or via e-mail, facebook, etc.] add up to something good? It seems to me they add up to three sins: wrong feeling, wrong thought, wrong action."

(page 66, Revell/Baker, ©1982 - emphasis mine)

So let us be honest: let us call slander by its name. Let us stomp on our own tongues to extinguish the fires of gossip. Let us cease from anger and forsake wrath that gives place to sin... Even if we were simply 'expressing ourselves'. Some forms of 'self-expression' are sin. I know, because I sin often. In the months since I have been back from Oxford, my patient mother has had many frustrated calls from me where I have 'vented' about a particular issue. However, in my 'authenticity', I confess that I sinned in just about every previously mentioned area – maybe all of them.

We must give place to emotions, but the place for our emotions (which includes things like rage, bitterness, resentment, even frustration) is found in the piercing eyes of the Man of Sorrows. When we look into the very eyes of Jesus, all of our hurts, unrighteous anger, jealousies, lusts, etc. die. Not because we haven't experienced real pain, frustration, desires, and so on, but because Jesus, too, has dealt with derision and scorn. He, too, has served annoying people. He had to be flexible at the last second. His closest friends deserted Him. Those in authority constantly badgered Him. People mocked Him and goaded Him. He knows.

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. ~ Hebrews 4:15

Jesus experienced rejection, hatred, scorn, abandonment (by His disciples and His own Father), and much more, but He did not sin in the way He reacted to those things. He was honest in His cry of "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" but He did not reject His mission or His Father at that point. He was obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2).

We must daily pray that we may have the mind of Christ. When we meet with joy and pain, gladness and frustration, hope and despair, ungodly anger and righteous indignation, unkindness and overwhelming blessing, unfairness and injustice (completely different things!), doubt and trust, and the myriad of other emotions that daily confront us, we will be able to respond aright if we have asked the Holy Spirit to help us put on the mind of Christ.

Remember, honesty is not always the best policy if you are 'expressing yourself' from wrong motives or in a sinful way. Look into the pages of Scripture, and into the eyes of Christ crucified, for direction on how to deal honestly with your emotions.