Restoring the Heart to Leadership

Why is it that in the condition described in Romans 7 that I feel compelled to do the things I don't want to do? What is the underlying drive inside of me that makes it so compelling?

I believe it is my heart desperately trying to express itself and stay alive under the suffocating repression of a left-brain domination. It is like a young woman forced to live in under the control of a stodgy old librarian and stays locked up in the library memorizing long lists of rules and constantly being forced to perform exactly to the external customs and manners of etiquette. She is never allowed to be expressive or allow her emotions to be seen but is expected to be always sober, reserved and rigid. Meanwhile her heart is churning inside of her to connect to other hearts, to explore and enjoy the beauty and charm of life, to engage in exciting relationships with young men, to break away from the suffocating restrictions and break out in singing and dancing and indulge in abandonment to her cravings and emotions. But no, she is never allowed to even speak or think of such things. They are considered wicked and completely off limits for her life and so she must live out her life pretty much like a nun cloistered away from contact with anything that would bring her joy.

As a result she finds himself daydreaming about forbidden things and hiding away with romance novels as an outlet for her starving heart. She feels tremendous guilt and condemnation every time she does it but she cannot help himself. She cannot even understand what is driving her to degrade herself in this way but neither can she stop herself. Like Paul she can only describe her experience as Paul did, “For I don't know what I am doing. For I don't practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. But if what I don't desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good.... For desire is present with me, but I don't find it doing that which is good. For the good which I desire, I don't do; but the evil which I don't desire, that I practice. But if what I don't desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the law, that, to me, while I desire to do good, evil is present.”

The analogy maybe could be tweaked to fit better as far as the librarian and the rules. But the situation is that all of the rules of behavior are correct – there may be nothing inherently wrong with any of the rules (except that many times they are carried far beyond their original intent). The real problem is that there is no acceptable outlet or role for the heart and for the passions under this arrangement.

I believe that God is the most passionate being in the universe. The reason we do not perceive Him that way is because of the distortions that sin has put on our perceptions and beliefs about Him. Somehow many of us have been deceived to believe that passion itself is somehow sinful and should be avoided. Therefore we assume that since passion is sinful then when God gets passionate it must be anger. This has led to many destructive beliefs about God that have alienated the hearts of millions over the centuries which is precisely what Satan intended.

We were created to live from our heart first and foremost and our head (left brain intellect) was to play a supporting role as a resource and guardian for our heart. “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” (Proverbs 4:23 NIV) This describes the primary function for our heart – it is supposed to be the spring from which flows wellness for our life. It is the location within us where the life of God is to pour into and through us. Jesus said to the woman at Jacob's well, “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4:14 NRSV) This is what our heart was designed to experience and provide for us. Our head has the job of protecting and guarding our heart, not attempting to replace it and usurping its place in our life.

So it makes perfect sense that since our heart is the most important part of us, our access point to the eternal life of God, that it would be the primary target of the enemy in his attempts to destroy God's work to save us. He has done this in many ways, but one of the most effective ways is to turn religion into an external exercise of performance while disconnecting our hearts and denying or suppressing our emotions. In doing so the engine that is to drive our lives has been disconnected and marginalized and the fuel for that engine, the passion of God, has been denied to even exist or is banned altogether.

As a result we find ourselves doing all sorts of things that we know we should not do. This is because our heart does not want to die, but since it is not allowed to function as originally intended it seeks outlets anywhere it can which always end up being counterproductive in the end. If it is not allowed to be the connection for receiving life from God and being a conduit of God's passion to others while energizing our life, it becomes a source of distorted passion that causes us to do all sorts of things of which we are ashamed. As a consequence we experience more and more condemnation and then are led to believe that those feelings are reflective of what God thinks about us which further alienate us from coming close to God. This is the sinful confusion that is our primary problem described in Romans 7.

In the analogy above, the solution to this heart condition would be to develop a healthy relationship with the heart of a prospective marriage partner that God has for us and to develop healthy love bonds. This would allow the heart to have a proper outlet and when the relationship deepened into marriage and the marriage deepened over time into more and more intimacy at all levels, we would see displayed a miniature demonstration of what God is like. The hearts of both lovers would be the primary leading force in their life while their intellect and knowledge base would supply the means for practical daily life, solutions for external problems that come up and protection from anything that would threaten their love or safety. Then the young woman, if she was properly bonded to her husband, would no longer feel compelled to indulge in fantasizing or any other coping addictions that kept her in bondage while holed up isolated in the library.

Again, the real issue here is not whether the rules and intellectual concepts she was forced to learn were right or wrong as much as the suffocation of her heart. Yes, the library of the mind needs to contain good and wholesome information or it will not be a reliable resource or a good protector for the heart to make good decisions. But humans were simply not created to be led by the intellect as the primary leader of their lives. We were created to be creatures of passion reflective of the reality of the God of passion who desires to bond with us through this means. Our intellect and database left brain is to play the supporting role in achieving this end, not a domineering role trying to repress the natural expressions and healthy desires that God designed for our heart to experience and enjoy. We are designed to live from the heart and anything less is a distortion of creation.

Our spirit is very closely associated with our heart. Our spirit is made up of our disposition, revealed in personality and by our emotions. (see some very insightful thoughts from the reading for today in My Utmost for His Highest)Yet our spirit is so deep and mysterious as to defy definition. Our spirit is a very real part of our identity whether it is recognized and appreciated or not. Our spirit is the access point for our heart for communication with other hearts through communion with their spirit. We are so little aware of this sometimes that we have very little appreciation for this part of our makeup, but it still is real nonetheless. Our spirit communicates with the spirit of others and also with supernatural spirits, both good and evil.

For us to live and function as human beings we have to form bonds with our hearts. As I have talked about before and as Jim Wilder has explained so well, there are two kinds of bonds – fear bonds and love bonds. These bonds become the foundation of all of our thinking and relationships with others. We cannot live without bonding – we will form bonds whether we intend to or not. Most of the bonds in this world are fear bonds of every nature imaginable, but the bonds in the kingdom of heaven are always love bonds. That is why there is such a radical change when we move from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. The Christian life is the process of becoming free from the many fear bonds that strangle our hearts and keep them in bondage, and replacing them with love bonds that feed and nourish our hearts and set them free to receive and give love with joy. This is the abundant life that Jesus promised, the life where we thrive and grow and feel fully alive in connection with others.

The problem with the kind of religion described in the first part of Romans 7 is that it fails to acknowledge the importance of a heart connection with God and puts all the emphasis on a head knowledge about doctrines and rules and behavior and spiritual facts. This results in the highly frustrating life described in the rest of the chapter due to the fact that the heart has not been allowed to take its proper position in our life. The reason we do not allow our heart to function as designed in this kind of setup is because we are afraid to let our heart express itself and take risks and experiment in life because it might cause us to make a mistake. These fear bonds are so strong that the heart is kept locked up to prevent it from ever embarrassing us or from causing us to make a mistake – which is always considered sin. This kind of religion is very keen on never making any mistakes or even taking any chances. It views God as a very strict and stern librarian and judge who is always comparing our performance with the “books” and rules and precepts and religious traditions. Any thought of making a mistake or taking risks in this kind of life immediately arouses fear and even terror at times. These fear bonds become the dominating feature of this kind of religious life and the heart is kept imprisoned to preclude it from causing any problems or creating any “trouble”.

The spirit of this kind of person becomes very much like the distortions of the God they imagine. They sometimes become stern and rigid and are often filled with fear and even anger. Or they may become depressed and despondent as they realize they can never measure up or satisfy the endless demands of this God. They never feel quite good enough to get God to love them. Over time a lot of internal (but repressed) resentment begins to accumulate and there is a good chance that bitterness begins to fill the heart. It is very hard to perform acts of love and unselfishness because the heart is not full of those attributes, so a great deal of energy is required to perform Christian acts of service for others because it has to look as good as possible while still devoid of the spontaneity of genuine love. Living a good-looking Christian life takes a horrendous amount of work and is very exhausting when the heart is kept locked away and is deprived of its primary fuel – the passion of God. These kind of Christians are often very tired if their bodies are not strong enough to compensate. They are sometimes very active and even aggressive in their outreach activities or religious performances but are prone to using force and pressure because of the absence of the natural attraction of genuine love and internal peace.

These kind of people are usually compelled to trans-mutate the meanings of most religious terms to fit the life they are living so that they can keep the Word of God aligned properly with the religious life they are experiencing. Am I saying this in condemnation? No, I am describing quite accurately the kind of religious life I have spent years living under trying to get myself into right favor with God, to earn His love and maybe even get to heaven.

The more I have studied and observed and learned, especially about the real truth about what God is like, the more I realize the importance of living first from the heart. This is the way I was designed to live even though it feels very scary given the background of my upbringing. The only safe way I can do this is to be led by the Spirit of God in connection and communion with my spirit, and being filled with a true knowledge about God. As I fill my mind – my database, my library – with more and more truth about what God is really like, this better information acts as a catalyst for my heart to begin to come more alive and take more risks and begin to stretch and move its atrophied muscles and appendages. I feel very awkward trying to live from the heart after a lifetime of living from the head and I really need people more experienced to mentor me in this growth. But despite my fears and apprehensions it still feels refreshing and invigorating and energizing as I start to experiment in living life in the reality of the presence of a passionate God who loves me and gives me His own life and love and energy.

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