Awake, My Soul!

Man, it's so easy to go through life without realizing what in the world is going on.  You get up, eat breakfast, go to work, work, come home, fix dinner, maybe hang out a little bit, do some chores, and then go to bed.  Where is the life in that?  Someone asks you what's up, and you have really no answer except, "work", "sleep", "chillin'".  What's up with that?

What's even worse is you feel like, if you keep going on like this, your personal demons are going to get the best of you.  There's an inner darkness looming just over the edge, and you're not quite sure if you'll be able to stop it when it gets here.

I'm learning lately that this is the life of a person who's heart is not in life.  I learned long ago that it is much easier to bruise the heart than the mind, so I tried to deaden the heart and live from the mind.  But is that really true?  Doesn't the mind suffer even more this way?

The life of the automoton that I described above isn't even human.  It's a robot, programmed by society and religion to live like this, talk like that, stay in the lines and be a good boy.

Problem is, it's real easy for the mind like this to be convinced that it is beyond hope, beyond help, beyond freedom.  The mind without the heart is like a dead man: all flesh, no soul.  C.S. Lewis called them "men without chests".  Men without hearts.  Men of morality and principles; rules, guidelines.  Well trained apes with no sense of direction, purpose, or love.   No sense of the sublime, the inspiring.  How can such an animal ever please God on a personal level?

To such a man, the only faith he can have is the kind that you have when you buy fire insurance.  You inconvenience yourself a little bit in the here and now so that when you die, you go to heaven.  Seems like wise planning.

But I've been reading the Bible lately, and it is extremely clear about men without hearts.  God is heartbroken by such people.  "They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."  He wants not men and women of intellect only, but he wants the part of you that cries out from the deepest depths of your soul.

I'm not talking about your "feelings".  I'm talking about the real YOU.  The sentient part of you.  What you think about when you say the words "I" and "Me".  When you say that someone really understands "you".  The real you.  This is your heart.  What the bible sometimes calls your heart of hearts, or the depths of a man's heart.  The part that nobody but you and God can really see.

Sometimes, I'm not even sure if I still have a heart.  But the defining characteristic of the heart is its ability to love.  As long as you love, you have a heart.  So I stop and think about the things I love, and it invigorates me.  It reminds me I'm alive.  It gives sense to all the mysteries, all the paradoxes that confound and confuse the lonely mind.

I love cool, crisp thunderstorms that leave me breathless.   I love the way my wife's toes dance when she's not even paying attention.  I love the way my sister can laugh and play, even when the world crumbles around her.  I love this guy, JD Norcross, and his wife, Lea.  I hardly even know them, but they love the Lord so much, and they get so excited about giving it all for God and their family.  Their kids are the most adorable, fun, and life-giving kids on the face of the planet.

Think about what you love.  All the things you love.  Everything from the way God loves you so much all the way down to daisies and the taste of hot fudge sundaes.  Reminisce of good times.  Deep down, that is you.  That is your heart.  Let it make you smile.  Let it make you weep with joy.  I'm serious.  Stop reading right now and take five minutes to think about what you really love.  You'll be surprised how human you really are in there. ;)

⁷ My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and make music.
⁸ Awake, my soul!
Awake, harp and lyre!
I will awaken the dawn.
                                           -Psalm 57:7,8