Sometimes A Complex Case

Why do we do what we do? The heart. The mind. The will. Mix them together and out comes the reason. Follow your heart? Not unless you disengage your mind. Make the most logical choice as you disengage your emotions? And what if your heart says don't and your mind says don't, but you still do? Or your mind says do and your heart says do, but then you don't?

The heart, the mind, and the will are not three separate railroad tracks that we run on. They make up the track itself--two rails and the crossties between them. My dad was a railroader for much of his life, and he knew that if two rails and the crossties got disjointed or snow-covered in any way that a train wreck would soon ensue. My Beloved's dad was also a railroader, and he had to go out many times to help get the railroad cars back onto the rails. And sometimes the train wrecks were disastrous. And so it happens to us, that when the heart, the mind, and the will get disconnected, our lives can be a train wreck.

Our decisions and choices come from the blending and balancing of the three aspects of the soul. We all probably know people who are driven by their heart's emotions, who seem not to think much of anything through as to its consequences. Like the song a few years back crooned, how can it be wrong when it feels so right? Likewise, we probably know people who set aside their emotional inclinations and focus on the logic of a decision, sometimes studying every aspect up one side and down the other so as to make the near perfect choice, but often making a decision that they feel really bad about simply because it's the logical thing to do. And then there are those who look straight ahead at the end of the tunnel and move forward by sheer will power. They have no emotional drive behind them and don't think about the path they're on. The goal is the determining factor. Just get to it.

Throughout the Scriptures, God gives us indications that the heart, the mind, and the will all come into play. They are often used interchangeably, and not one is given more importance than the other. They work in concert with one another. We are created in God's image. God gave us emotions because He has emotions. He gave us intellect because He has intellect. He gave us a will so we would be free to make decisions. When He decides in His mind to intervene on our behalf, He does it with lovingkindness. And Jesus came to do the Father's will. He set His mind to the cross and wept in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Why do we do what we do? Motivations can be difficult to discern, for ourselves and for others. We need to be careful not to attribute motivations that may themselves be quite complex. A motivation can be a little from the heart, a whole lot of mind-boggling reasoning, and then some sheer will power. Or it can be mostly emotion, not much thinking behind it, and maybe not any will power moving it along. We're sometimes complicated cases ourselves. And this is good to keep in mind when we want to help family and friends work through their own complicated cases. It takes a lot of discernment to hear what the heart, the mind, and the will are playing in concert.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking how I'm culpable myself of attributing motivations to people in the grocery store who are not wearing face masks during this Covid-19 situation, while I am wearing one and have made masks for others. I feel myself wanting to say to these unmasked people, "I care about you, don't you care about me?" And I answer for them--and you can pretty well guess what I'm thinking. But then again, maybe they do care, but .....  We all have our own motivations for what we do or what we don't do.

Image via Pixabay

There's A Prerequisite

Sharing a quiet time thought today. I came across a verse last evening as I was reading a biography of Augustine that caught my attention. I began to think about what Jesus had told His disciples in Matthew 5:8, one of the Beatitudes-- "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." I gave it more attention this morning as I pondered the phrase "they shall see God."

Jesus told Philip that those who have seen Me, have seen the Father (John 14:9). Many did see Him while He was on earth, but most did not recognize Him. Why not? Few were looking for Truth. They had their own ideas of what God would be like. He would fulfill their preconceived notions.

When God confronted Job with His glory after Job had grumbled against Him, Job's eyes were opened in humility. He said to God, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.... My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You (Job 42:3, 5). Humility of heart enabled Job to see God as He is--full of wonder and glory and amazement. Pride keeps us from seeing life, death, God, others, anything clearly. It blurs the lens through which we look. It renders us myopic.

Philip saw Jesus in the flesh, and God spoke to Job directly, but what about those of us in the present? God has spoken for centuries through His Word, the Scriptures. Just as with Job, a humble heart opens our spiritual eyes to His glory and magnificence as we read. And some through the years have seen God as He is.

But Jesus says there is a prerequisite to seeing God. Not all see Him. Many will never see Him. It isn't a physical 'seeing' but, rather, a spiritual 'seeing,' and only the pure in heart see Him. How can we be pure in heart when Scripture tells us that the heart is deceitful and desperately sick. Who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9). And "Who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood" (Psalm 24:4). 

Are we living a lie or living in truth? We only know what truth is from God's Word. And there Jesus tells us that He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6). Any other way that we might be trying, or any other person we might be following, is lifting up the soul to falsehood. It's a lie, plain and simple, that keeps many from seeing God. The sad thing is, so many believe the Lie. They are deceived. Some are even self-deceived (James 1:22).

The Lie says, "Blessed are those who are proud of who they are, for they shall be envied." Blessed are those who trust in their reputation, for they shall be advanced." Blessed are those who have self- confidence, those who don't need God, for they can run their own life." But that, dear one, is lifting up the soul to falsehood. And those who do will not stand in God's holy place. They will never see God.

What a terrible void, a horrible hole in one's heart.

Only those those who are pure in heart, only those living in truth, only those who have come into His presence through Jesus can ever hope to see God.

Seek Him, and you will find Him, for He says, "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13). Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near (Acts 55:6).

I hope you see Him, dear one, and that we will see one another in His Heaven, when we can see Him face to face.

Image ~ Inseparable, Florence Fuller, c1900

via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

Heart of the Matter

I like to begin each day with a nugget of truth from God's Word and ponder on it throughout the morning as I go about my routine tasks. I typically read through a daily devotional book throughout the year, and this year I've chosen Heart of the Matter from the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF). This is a devotional that focuses on heart change, on seeing the gospel in our everyday lives.

Today's entry is on relationships:

What happens in the messiness of relationships is that our hearts are revealed, our weaknesses are exposed, and we start coming to the end of ourselves. Only when this happens do we reach out for the help God alone can provide. Weak and needy people finding their hope in Christ's grace are what mark a mature relationship..... While we would like to avoid the mess and enjoy deep and intimate community, God says that it is in the very process of working through the mess that intimacy is found.

Food for thought, indeed. I too often want to avoid the uneasy relationships. But I'm reminded today that honeymoons don't last long, and working through the difficulties can mature me and the relationship. Even if the spouse/family/friend relationship doesn't improve or deepen (and I've had that happen, heartbreaking as it may be), I've been pushed to a closer relationship with God. Either way, I'm better for it.

P.S. If you click on the book, it will take you to CCEF's site.

The Morphing of A Desire

 One of my pleasures in life is spending time on my screened-in back porch. Some days I have to remind myself that there are other things in life to do and pull myself away. When the season allows, I love to go out early of the morning for my quiet time and watch the sun break over the hill. I enjoy serving meals there whenever we can, and it’s a wonderful place for quiet chats and talking into the night. Well, you get the idea!

I’m very thankful for my back porch, partly because I enjoy it so much and partly because God used it to change my heart. You see, I’ve wanted a back porch for years and years and years. It started out as a good desire, but became something that controlled me. God used a counseling class that I took about a few years ago to teach me something about myself. One of the papers that I had to write was a response to a reading assignment by Paul David Tripp on how a desire can become an idol of the heart. Let’s pick up here with my response paper—

One of the concepts that particularly struck me in this reading was the morphing of a good desire into something that controls me. The desire itself can be positive, something that could be a blessing if it stayed simply as a desire and didn’t become an idol. As I look back at it now, I see this downward progression in a simple desire to have a back porch.

I think porches are calming and offer brief respites in the midst of the tasks of the day. We have a deck, but a porch would be different. A porch has a roof, so I could go there whether it was sunny or rainy. I dislike dragging out a chair cushion for a few moments of rest and cranking up the umbrella to get out of the sun, so I don’t use our deck very much. With a porch I would simply take a few minutes to rest, watch the birds, maybe read a chapter or two of a good book, and breathe in the fresh air.

I’ve seen this desire for a porch morph over the past several years into a controlling desire. Tripp says that the next step is demand, followed by need. However, with my porch it seems to me that I first viewed it as a need before I began to demand it. I needed it for times of tranquil rest. I needed it so I could go outside and be out of the sun without a lot of rigmarole. I needed it so I could invite people to come and sit for a spell and we could have a good chat. Once I convinced myself that I needed that porch, I tried to convince my husband that I needed it. The demanding came in the form of ‘You must help me get what I think I need.’ Because I know he loves me and wants to provide what he can for my perceived needs, I soon began to expect him to jot this little need in his planner and set aside time to tend to it. But it seemed to me that he was giving half-hearted attention to it. Time and again I would bring up the need for a porch, and I soon realized that I probably was not going to get it. There were various and sundry reasons given for not getting a porch—how to attach it to the house, the slope of the roof, the cost, the time to personally build it.

My expectation was not being realized, and I began to equate my husband’s resistance to getting me a porch with poor character qualities on his part. Even though I didn’t express this to him, I began to feel sorry for myself that I didn’t have a porch because of my husband’s self-centeredness and lack of ambition. And so disappointment set in when year after year I didn’t get my porch. To my shame, a big disappointment was his birthday gift to me this summer—a screened canvas gazebo to sit on the deck. I felt like it was his way of saying that was as close as I was going to get to having a porch, and my heart rebelled! I kept my thoughts about it to myself as he happily installed it on the deck. It didn’t even match the house, and I was wallowing deep in self-pity. As Tripp says, disappointment leads to some form of punishment. I didn’t thank my dear husband for his gift. I didn’t even sit in it for several days. Even though I didn’t express my attitude to him, I was angry because he substituted what I desired for something I felt was easier for him.

God began to show me the sinfulness of my heart. I was the one who was self-centered with an ungrateful heart. My husband had done what he could to give me what I wanted. I asked God’s forgiveness for my attitude, and He gave me a grateful heart. I began to show my husband that I enjoyed our little gazebo and appreciated the gift. We have Saturday breakfast there and often sit there together after he gets home from a day’s work. We enjoy watching the birds come up close that don’t even seem to notice us behind the screen. I do some of my reading there in the cool of the morning or the quiet of the afternoon.

I don’t even want a porch now. I’m satisfied with the little screened gazebo sitting on the deck because I see the loving heart of my husband in desiring to give me something he knew I wanted. I now see that the porch had become an idol, morphing from a simple desire to controlling my heart.

Ezekiel 14:2 And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity."

Now the deck and the little gazebo are gone. Two autumns ago Mike had my back porch built. I believe God in His goodness had kept a good thing from me to work a better thing in my heart. He often withholds something good to give something better. And then in His abundant grace He gave me my porch as well. 

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; 

The LORD gives grace and glory; 

No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. 

~ Psalm 84:11

Why Do We Do What We Do?

Sharing a book recommendation with you from my daughter Elizabeth.

I have begun working with a new counselee, and have therefore been spending a lot of time contemplating, "why do we do what we do?" Counselees struggle with a plethora of issues, but I cannot be satisfied simply picking one of their problem areas (i.e., depression, eating disorders, marital strife, anger) and helping them change in that area. No, there is something at the root of all these problems - something that explains why they are where they are, or in other words, who or what controls them. I must seek to uncover these root issues, these "functional gods," or these "idols of the heart" if I am to direct the counselee to lasting change. Anything short of this will be temporary and self-directed.

One resource I regularly return to when helping counselees discern the issues of their heart is Elyse Fitzpatrick's Idols of the Heart. This is an excellent book, not only for explaining what our idols tend to be, but in helping the reader walk through her own issues in a very practical way.