Practice Makes Perfect

We all know that the heart is vital for life. When someone calls 911 reporting chest pains, an ambulance is sent out immediately or when you enter an emergency room with chest pains, there is no waiting in the waiting room. As the main organ of your circulatory system, your heart keeps you alive. For our heart to be healthy and function as it should we have to take care of it. Not only is it vital to maintain our physical existence, it has a spiritual significance as well. Four thousand years ago the Egyptians believed the heart played a part in the spiritual dimension, not just the physical. Upon death, they weighed the person’s heart to see how much good and evil it contained and placed the heart in special urns for burial. The brain was discarded. They also believed in an afterlife and judgment. We know they were skewed in their pagan beliefs, but they were on to something regarding the spiritual significance of the heart. Have you ever noted how many colloquial expressions there are related to the heart? “I’ve had a change of heart,” “It is with a heavy heart,” “Put your heart into it.” These expressions seem to presume that the heart is more than the pump that powers your body. It is the seat of emotions (broken-hearted, heartache, heartbreaking) and even affects your temperament (big-hearted, bleeding heart, heart of gold, heartless.) THE HEART AND MIND CONNECTION Have you ever thought in your mind that something just didn’t make sense, but you felt in your heart it was the right thing to do? I had that experience years ago when I resigned from a job I loved. I worked for a non-profit that ministered to the needs of women and children in crisis. My husband was between jobs at the time, but his military retirement, a severance package from his last job, and my job were keeping us afloat. We had a lot of expenses at that time with our oldest son in college, a son in high school, and one in middle school, four vehicles, a mortgage, and day-to-day expenses. One morning, while I was getting ready for work, I had this thought come out of nowhere that I was to resign from my job. That didn’t make sense. Not only did I love what I was doing, but we needed my salary. Surely, I misunderstood. I didn’t want to mention this confusing revelation to my husband until I prayed and felt assured that it was the Holy Spirit directing me to do this. I prayed for three weeks keeping this hidden in my heart between just God and me as I tried to gain understanding. At the end of those three weeks, I told my husband what I felt I was to do even though it didn’t make sense, particularly at this time. He was very understanding and affirmed that if I felt sure God was leading me in this decision, I had no choice but to go with it. I gave my resignation letter to the Director, and, like I had been, everyone in the office was shocked. Just months before, I had been sent out of state for further training and preparation for a specific area to oversee! The brain reasons and analyzes. The heart feels and responds. The mind and heart work together thinking a thought and taking action. My mind and my heart had not yet fully comprehended and connected on this, but I had to accept and move with what I felt in my heart. I waited and prayed for God’s next plan for me. God definitely had some other plans, and I had to leave my full-time job to do it all! All preparation for things to come. Don’t mistake what I said I felt in my heart as allowing my emotions to direct me. We can’t just follow our hearts as the world tells us. That is a dangerous thing because of the temptation to follow the sinful nature. The heart and mind can lead us astray. We are in a daily battle between our sinful nature, which we are born with, and our spiritual nature which we are born again into by the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve were innocent and pure until succumbing to evil and sin entered the world. Our hearts can lead us away from Christ just as it can lead us to Christ. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 Note the heart and mind connection. Nothing is hidden from God. We reap what we sow based on our actions. If we act on our own fleshly desires and not on God’s desires and His perfect will for us, we could end up with regrets. If the heart and mind get corrupted, everything else suffers. Be encouraged. God gives us the power to say no to sin through the power of the Holy Spirit in us. What we think (the mind) determines how we feel (the heart) which leads to how we act (our deeds). The analytical mind is linked to the deep emotions of the heart. The Bible is clear about that. Throughout scripture, even from the examples of great men and women whom God used, we learn that the heart can be easily deceived by sinful thoughts and actions. We have an enemy at work who wants to corrupt our thoughts to evil and distract us from reliance on God. Be on guard!