Heart Follows Habit: Why I Like Heidi
Alright let me just say it: "I like Heidi". I actually like David's dog. Coming from a confirmed life-long animal stiff-armer, that really is saying something. How did this happen? The only thing I can think of is that I've walked at least 200 miles with her in the past few months. Plus I have kicked a ball around with her, and petted her, and let her put her head on my lap. Something happens when you spend time and energy on something or someone: affection grows. Yes even for a dog.
Jesus once said: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:31). I understand Him to mean that your heart will follow your investments. What you give your time, money, attention, and energy to, will receive your growing affection. Investments of resources are like arrows with a string attached and tied at the other end to your heart. Where you shoot the arrow, the heart will go. The habitual direction of your life will determine the daily affection of your heart. Heart follows habit.
This is true with God. Don't get me wrong: there does need to be something basic in the heart to give birth to habits which in turn affect the heart. Habits without any pre-existing heart lead to legalism and deadness of soul. The heart must be open and inclined toward God as it approaches spiritual habits or disciplines. A fundamental divinely implanted reverence for God and love of God, the fruits of a truly regenerated heart, are the prerequisistes for all true spiritual devotion.
Let me illustrate. When I was sixteen I was in search of a wife. After all, life was passing me by and I had to get to it! Just a couple of days after I met Gayline back in 1975, I popped the big question; at least it was big in the moment. I asked her: "Gayline, do you like me?" Rather clumsy and not much for romance or creativity, I realize. And full of self, I know. But what I lacked in grace and humility and skill and romantic suavity I more than made up for with dogged and determined desire. I was committed to get this girl that I was convinced was for me. And under the circumstances I had to act fast and get to the point.
Gayline's response was somewhat less than a ringing endorsement of my like-ability, never mind potential love-ability. To my all-important question she simply said: "I think I could." Lesser men's spirits would have been dampened by such a tepid response, but apparently, I am not a lesser man. Being one who goes with what he gets, I went with what she sent. And what she sent was a little hint that I had a chance.
She sent a message that she was open, inclined, leaning in my direction. I leaped through the opening, and went into serious pursuit mode. And wooing, I won.
Now there is a "what if?". What if Gayline had not been open? And what if she had returned all my hundreds of letters unopened and unread? And what if she had rejected my phone calls or denied my visits or blocked her ears or never opened her heart and shared her life with me? What if I had pursued but she had not engaged with all the messages and words and actions of love I sent her way?
It's pretty obvious: if she hadn't engaged, then the story would have ended that summer of '75. But she did engage. She habitually and eagerly read and listened and spoke and shared and responded and built her life around a growing relationship with the man who would become her husband. And as a result, her "I think I could like you" turned into a lifetime of love, devotion and joy. Her heart followed her habits.
Friends, God is the Lover-Wooer of our souls. By sovereign and supernatural grace He plants a seed of desire in our hearts; desire that opens our hearts and inclines them to Him. Then He woos and wins. He draws us closer, and then delights our hearts as we--wooed and enabled by His love--eagerly and habitually engage with Him through His relationship deepening means of grace.
As we read and hear God's Word, as we talk to Him in prayer, as we commune with Him at His Table, as we fellowship with His church, as we fast and sacrifice other things that dull our affections for the Savior, as we submit to pastoral and brother-to-brother/sister-to-sister care, as we practice all the habits and diciplines of grace, our faint desire for Him grows into full love. Our hearts follow our habits.
This is what the spiritual disciplines are really about. We practice them not to get God to love us more, but to fuel our hearts to love Him more. Devotional habits of the spirit are not rules to be kept to ensure God's ongoing mercy so much as they are moments to be cherished for the sweetening of our joy, and the deepening of our love, in God.
May I encourage you to ask God today for a fresh joyful perspective on the disciplines of grace. May it be that today when you read the Word or try to pray, you will seek to hear the voice of the One who woos, and then speak words of love in return.
He is, after all, the Lover of your soul.
Jesus once said: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:31). I understand Him to mean that your heart will follow your investments. What you give your time, money, attention, and energy to, will receive your growing affection. Investments of resources are like arrows with a string attached and tied at the other end to your heart. Where you shoot the arrow, the heart will go. The habitual direction of your life will determine the daily affection of your heart. Heart follows habit.
This is true with God. Don't get me wrong: there does need to be something basic in the heart to give birth to habits which in turn affect the heart. Habits without any pre-existing heart lead to legalism and deadness of soul. The heart must be open and inclined toward God as it approaches spiritual habits or disciplines. A fundamental divinely implanted reverence for God and love of God, the fruits of a truly regenerated heart, are the prerequisistes for all true spiritual devotion.
Let me illustrate. When I was sixteen I was in search of a wife. After all, life was passing me by and I had to get to it! Just a couple of days after I met Gayline back in 1975, I popped the big question; at least it was big in the moment. I asked her: "Gayline, do you like me?" Rather clumsy and not much for romance or creativity, I realize. And full of self, I know. But what I lacked in grace and humility and skill and romantic suavity I more than made up for with dogged and determined desire. I was committed to get this girl that I was convinced was for me. And under the circumstances I had to act fast and get to the point.
Gayline's response was somewhat less than a ringing endorsement of my like-ability, never mind potential love-ability. To my all-important question she simply said: "I think I could." Lesser men's spirits would have been dampened by such a tepid response, but apparently, I am not a lesser man. Being one who goes with what he gets, I went with what she sent. And what she sent was a little hint that I had a chance.
She sent a message that she was open, inclined, leaning in my direction. I leaped through the opening, and went into serious pursuit mode. And wooing, I won.
Now there is a "what if?". What if Gayline had not been open? And what if she had returned all my hundreds of letters unopened and unread? And what if she had rejected my phone calls or denied my visits or blocked her ears or never opened her heart and shared her life with me? What if I had pursued but she had not engaged with all the messages and words and actions of love I sent her way?
It's pretty obvious: if she hadn't engaged, then the story would have ended that summer of '75. But she did engage. She habitually and eagerly read and listened and spoke and shared and responded and built her life around a growing relationship with the man who would become her husband. And as a result, her "I think I could like you" turned into a lifetime of love, devotion and joy. Her heart followed her habits.
Friends, God is the Lover-Wooer of our souls. By sovereign and supernatural grace He plants a seed of desire in our hearts; desire that opens our hearts and inclines them to Him. Then He woos and wins. He draws us closer, and then delights our hearts as we--wooed and enabled by His love--eagerly and habitually engage with Him through His relationship deepening means of grace.
As we read and hear God's Word, as we talk to Him in prayer, as we commune with Him at His Table, as we fellowship with His church, as we fast and sacrifice other things that dull our affections for the Savior, as we submit to pastoral and brother-to-brother/sister-to-sister care, as we practice all the habits and diciplines of grace, our faint desire for Him grows into full love. Our hearts follow our habits.
This is what the spiritual disciplines are really about. We practice them not to get God to love us more, but to fuel our hearts to love Him more. Devotional habits of the spirit are not rules to be kept to ensure God's ongoing mercy so much as they are moments to be cherished for the sweetening of our joy, and the deepening of our love, in God.
May I encourage you to ask God today for a fresh joyful perspective on the disciplines of grace. May it be that today when you read the Word or try to pray, you will seek to hear the voice of the One who woos, and then speak words of love in return.
He is, after all, the Lover of your soul.
Labels: Spiritual disciplines
posted by Tim Shorey at
9:52 AM
5 Comments:
Thanks Tim! I think some have misunderstood Jesus in this text to be saying something quite different: That where your heart is, you will invest your treasure. That is a process we can understand. I love my family-- so I willingly spend my time at home.
If, however, Jesus means that one's heart follows one's treasure, then what becomes the motivation to invest in the Kingdom (if my heart don't feel it yet)?
What made you decide to spend time with Heidi in the first place if you had previously held animals at arms length? As you explained in a previous post, it was the right thing to do (to spare Gayline the responsibility).
I suppose then, a sense of obligation precedes love? Discipline and duty eventually lead to fulfillment--and so I must seek the Lord because it is right and proper-- and he will reward me with Himself, eventually.
Really good questions Pete. I think the answer lies much in the point I make that God plants a desire within us through regenerating grace. It is with that seed desire that we must begin the pursuit of God through His means of grace.
I have found it to be like having an appetizer that makes me hungry for more. The tastes I've had of God make me crave more of God. And the more I crave, the more I go to the table of spiritual disciplines--all based on the cross and righteousness work of Christ--to gain more of the feast that God is.
The man who found the treasure in the field and then sold all to buy the field is a model of this kind of passion (Matthew 13:44). He found the treasure (that parallels the birth of desire for, and delight in God that the new birth produces); then he sold all to get and keep the treasure (that would parallel the believer's daily choices to deny self, sin, and all other treasures, and to pursue the discplines and the whole life of faith in order to have more of God, who is the highest treasure there is).
Does that make sense?
Yes! Makes good sense.
What does NOT make sense is why I settle for so much less (simple appetizers)when I truly believe a feast awaits those who seek the Lord with all their heart. To content oneself with appetizers only (or even the memory of those appetizers) is to go malnourished through our days. God, stir me and wake me!
Thanks anonymous. (By the way folks, if you click anonymous but don't mind us knowing who you are, you can just type your name in the box with your comments.
Responding to the anonymous commnents I offer one of my favorite John Piper staements. It's done a number on my life: "If we don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because we have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great."
--John Piper in Hunger for God
Oops... I didn't intend to suddenly become "anonymous." It's me again, Pete. Must have clicked the wrong "button."
Yes, I have nibbled at the table of this world. In my case the food has consisted of good, God given gifts (family, wife, relationships, work, sports, reading). The sin for me is not so much in the nibbling, but in my refusal to accept the invitation to come and be seated with Him for a more substantial and intimate dining experience.
I have rightly enjoyed these gifts which pertain to this world, and have thanked the Giver, but have no doubt offended him at the same time by satisfying myself with far less than He wishes to bestow on me. Doesn't make sense!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home