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

 

Ring Out!

O God, You know my foolishness;
And my sins are not hidden from You.

Let not those who wait for You, O Lord GOD of hosts, be ashamed because of me;

Let not those who seek You be confounded because of me, O God of Israel.

~ Psalm 69:5-6

 Let not those who wait for You...be ashamed because of me. These words lodged in my mind and heart when I read them several weeks past. Several phrases from Scripture are giving me pause to consider my actions this summer, but this was the first. As I read this section of Psalms, I questioned whether my actions made other Christians ashamed. I know for a fact that the ignorance, ingratitude, and thoughtless words of many other Christians makes me cringe to be numbered among them. Little wonder that those who do not know Jesus think Christians are wacky and ignorant! Yet... Am I numbered among those who confound non-believers, or shame fellow believers?

The on-line etymology dictionary defines confounded thus: an intensive execration, "odious, detestable, damned..." Our actions, flowing from our ideas, have consequences. Our actions can be either life or death to others. My attitude about many things this summer has proved odious and detestable - is it possible that my attitude, my words, my actions have turned someone away from seeing Jesus? Have my actions made anyone 'an enemy of the cross'?

Attitudes and actions do not simply 'fall upon' a person. They are conscious choices. Sometimes factors beyond our control do push certain buttons inside of us. However, our re-actions to those circumstances, hormones, people, and so forth determine where our minds and hearts really are. Are we marinating our minds in the word of God? Are we daily asking the Holy Spirit to lead us out of sin and into right-wise (the Old English meaning of righteousness) living? 

I, for one, know that I am often undisciplined. At various times I lack discipline in going to bed before midnight, or getting up when my alarum sounds, or in eating healthfully, or making time before work to meditate on God's word, or a number of other things. Yet I always have time to check my e-mail (though I do not always reply to it very quickly), eat food, or do something I want to do. However, without discipline, we lack freedom. Put positively, when we live disciplined lives we are made free.

As I sit here in the window of this cottage I can see a sailboat skimming silently along the horizon. It is a beautiful, image of freedom. But the freedom of the sailboat to move so swiftly and beautifully is the result of obedience to laws. 

The builder of the boat had to know the proper ratio of beam to keel and mast. The one who sails the boat obeys the rules of sailing. A ship tacking against the wind moves deviously, but when she runs with a strong tide or a following wind she takes, to herself the power of tide and wind and they become her own. She is doing the thing she was made for. She is free not by disobeying the rules but by obeying them.

~ Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be A Woman

 If you read nothing else of this post, read, re-read, that bit by Elisabeth Elliot. We are made free by obedience to our design, to our Designer. A sailboat is no more free to sail down the street than I am free to be fit if I do not eat well and exercise often. 

I am free to have a right heart to direct my thoughts and attitude only if I make wise choices to be disciplined. I am free to respond graciously if I have spent time meditating on the forgiveness and kindness Jesus has shown me. I am free to think of others as persons, not objects, when I have spent time in prayer for them as individuals. I am free to love others only by being willing to give up some of my own time or other resources to listen to them. Doing one thing means the exclusion of doing all other things. Are the things I am doing worth giving up time to listen to others, time alone in thought or prayer, time spent reading or writing?

Are my actions, are your actions, as stumbling block, a damnation to others? Or are our actions, in public and in private, an aroma of life to others, a sweet smelling offering to our good and kind Father? Is our love for God and for others (in the form or kindness, graciousness, right-wise living, etc.) a beacon for others to see by? Is it a clarion call to them to come further up and further in?

"And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere...for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it..."

~ St. Paul (I Thes. 1.8, NLT)

~ Johanna