The heart of life is the life in the heart

Photo by Anna Kolosyuk on Unsplash

Oh how basic and how profound are the fundamentals of life. The person cornered in their narcissism (and we all have the capacity for it) misses what could and would set them entirely free.

It’s vested so close to them they dare not see. They would rather blame others than make firm their way for freedom. They cast all their control onto a scapegoat and forever lose the power they could have. And pity that scapegoat, because it is a marriage partner, a fellow brother or sister in Christ, or somebody else we have a blessed connection with; and that connection is destroyed through self-absorption. It is even worse when both people do it to each other.

This is a paradoxical concept, but with a holy twist:

The pursuit of the heart is a selfish matter,
for God will answer the prayer that’s enacted.

Yes, that’s right.
God blesses us when we do
holy things for ourselves.

To go after the heart, however, requires anything but selfishness, though it certainly is wisdom.

This is a wisdom that sees that God is always right; that God will always have His way. It’s a wisdom that agrees that God wins! It’s a wisdom that agrees with the truth: you will never beat God. When we realise this, we accept the way that reality, i.e. life, works.

Whenever we decide that God wins, we stop playing god. Notice the little gee I used.

We are pathetic gods.

We pretend we are godlike,
putting on a pantomime,
and it is the commonest insanity.

We behave as if we could change our own world, never realising in our anguish that we cannot even control our world. By ‘our world’ I mean our own very little patch of it, not the whole globe. Even to suggest that we can control our own very little patch is incredibly naïve.

The wise person quickly determines that the narcissistic way is comprehensive folly. It will never work and only leads to inner domination and outer frustration, unless the person is a complete narcissist and can only see how right they are, and how completely wrong everybody else is.

The healthiest thing we can do spiritually is to connect with our inner narcissism; yes, it is that thing that thrives within us when it is left unchecked. And the enormity of the paradox of the heart is the more willing we go to look with honesty, that the Holy Spirit would be allowed to convince our heart, the more God will bless us with the acquisition of humility.

The heart of life is the life in the heart.

Verily, the heart of life is the life in the heart, and life in the heart is centrally about the humility that perceives and surrenders to the truth. Only those who walk humbly with their God will have life in the heart, for they have understood and reconciled the heart of life.

How can I put this as plainly as possible?

It is simply this: if there is conflict in your life, even to the most important relational places, and there may only be one conflict, but it is so significant, you must ask yourself, what is my contribution, and what can I do to get out of my own way?

Life in the heart is evidenced by the conviction of the Holy Spirit that reveals to us the log in our own eye. Death in the heart, on the other hand, is evidenced by finger-pointing and blame-shifting.

You know, as a counsellor, in coming to know a person, I need to be able to determine how much life there is in their heart, and that is evidenced in how they relate with intimate others.

If there is only the basis of finger-pointing and blame-shifting, even if it appears the person is attempting the heart-work of humility, i.e. that they are still characterised by pride, I know there is no true conviction in their heart, and therefore what they need from me as their helper is tough love.

Tough love is designed to augment conviction of the heart, which is to cause them to seriously look inward and connect with their inner rubbish, of which we all have in too much abundance. What a blessing it is for anyone who can connect with the truth of their inner rubbish within them. That there is freedom, because in hating those things that are wrong about us, we are compelled to right these things, and such a practice is always good news for others, just as it is directly good news for ourselves, because there is more peace in our relationships.

The evidence that the person does not need tough love is they are hard on themselves and easy on others. It is beautiful to work with a heart so aligned with God that all the heart is interested in is getting the log out of its own eye.

But unfortunately, certainly in the counselling space, it is comparatively rare to work with those who are surging with life in their heart. People come to therapy when they are ill-of-health not when they’re healthy. It makes sense, of course, because if you have no heart-work to do there would be no need of counselling.

Again, it is my privilege to be involved with PeaceWise, a movement that envisions opportunity out of conflict.