I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day and that you have had a great week!
Our hearts have been on my mind and, well heart, for the last couple of weeks. Physically it is pretty clear and easy to understand...life flows through our hearts. If our hearts stop, we die. We work out (some of us!) diligently to preserve it, we watch what we eat to try to protect and, if something goes wrong with our physical heart, medical advances are so great that we can actually get a new one to sustain our lives.
The heart that I am speaking about this morning however is not the physical heart. The heart I am speaking about and thinking about is actually much more important than the physical heart. Life flows through this heart as well. Sadly, people - lots and lots of people - are living physically however the heart of which I am speaking is dead - hardened by life, broken by abuses - physical, mental, spiritual and just plain empty.
I would like to share several facts, quotes and scriptures with you:
- According to www.twopaths.com in four different translations of the bible, the heart is the fourth most used word in the bible after Lord, God & Jesus. I am not the brightest bulb on the scoreboard however I figure if heart appears this many times in the bible it must be important!
- Dictionary.com lists several definitions for heart and includes more than 20 idioms for heart. Again, seems to me to be a pretty big, important word.
- "Happy are those whose hearts are pure, for they shall see God." - Matthew 5:8
- "End all wickedness, O Lord, and bless all who truly worship God; for you, the righteous God, look deep within the hearts of men and examine all their motives and their thoughts. God is my shield; He will defend me. He saves those whose hearts and lives are right and true." - Psalm 7: 9 - 10
- "You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For a man's heart determines his speech. A good man's speech reveals the rich treasures within him. An evil-hearted man is filled with venom, and his speech reveals it." - Matthew 12: 34 - 35
- "Only those with pure hands and hearts, who do not practice dishonesty and lying." - Psalm 24: 4
- In "Waking the Dead" John Eldridge states: "Of all the things that are required of us in this life, which is the most important? What is the real point of our existence? Jesus was confronted with the question point-blank one day, and he boiled it all down to two things: loving God and loving others. Do this, he said, and you will find the purpose of your life. Everything else will fall into place. Somewhere down inside we know it's true: we know love is the point. We know if we could truly love and be loved, and never lose love, we would finally be happy. And is it even possible to love without your heart?"
- Eldridge also states, "Whether it's the people in your life or the things that bring you joy or the places that are dear to you or your God, you could not love them if you did not have a heart. Loving requires a heart alive and awake and free."
So where is the disconnect? Why are there so many people walking around alive and yet, at the same time, completely dead. I would like to share just a few thoughts/ideas for you to consider on this beautiful Friday morning.
1. We need to take care of our hearts. Just as we workout and watch what we eat to take care of our physical hearts, we need to workout and watch what we feed our spiritual hearts as well and I would offer, even more so. The things we allow to be poured into our hearts - words, thoughts, ideas, etc. - plant a tiny seed that when we water them they grow. As we continue to feed our hearts these words, thoughts, ideas, etc. they grow and grow and grow. Just as the physical foods we eat fill our heart and clog arteries, these "foods" fill our hearts as well. These "foods" then fuel our words, our thoughts and our actions. It really isn't hard to see what "foods" a person has been eating and what type of "workout" they have been doing for their heart. Please think about it. Where have the hopes and dreams gone? Why do some feel as though their lives have no meaning, value or purpose? Who told a woman she is not beautiful enough? Who told the man his life has no purpose? Who told the child it is useless to pursue a dream?
2. It just kills me to think of what we do to one anothers hearts! If we are breathing this morning I pray that we will realize that the words we speak, the things we do impact lives greatly. A careless word spoken in a moment of exhaustion or frustration can plant a seed in anothers heart that can change the entire trajectory of the life that person will live...and no, I am not being dramatic! As a man who was privileged to be called "Coach" for more than 15 years, I can't count the number of young men who I have talked to who were totally broken - totally broken at 17, 18, 19-years of age!!! - because someone had planted seeds of "dumb", "worthless", "useless", "hopeless", etc. in their hearts. These untruths had taken root and grown deep...sometimes so deep I wondered how such a thing could be possible. They now believed this to be true and were living out their lives accordingly. As a man honored and privileged to be called Husband and Dad this scares me, it motivates me and more than anything else it forces me to my knees to beg God to lead them through me because I know I am completely unable of leading them by my own accord.
3. I have shared this quote before however I must share it again; Ken Whitten once said, "What is in the well always comes up in the bucket." What is in your heart will always come out in your attitude, words, actions, etc. I want to encourage us all to pull the bucket up this morning and take a look inside. Oh trust me, I get it. We might not like the "water" that we see spill out. Just because we don't like it doesn't change what the "water" acts like, says and does. That is determined by the "workouts" and "food" we have been feeding our hearts. While we can't change what is in the bucket this morning, we can choose the "workouts" and the "food" we will feed our hearts from this moment forward and slowly - not slowly like "what's the use" by the way! - our "water" will begin to change.
Please let me know if there is ever anything I can do for you or your precious families. I am always willing to help you any way I can.
Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious families and Go Patriots! (Oh come on, I am a former football coach...what did you expect!)
Kev
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