the way the heart is...

The Way the Heart Is
Love is pain but it is also good. You have to take chances and let go sometimes in order to experience something so beautiful, specifically chances with the heart…

A few years ago a friend kept telling me that I couldn’t trust him because his heart was deceitful. It was in reference to the verse Jeremiah 17 verse 9 that says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” I did not believe him because I like to think the most of people. I like to look at them and believe that they are different. I even gave him a chance to show me that he was what I believed he was. But…eventually what he believed and the way his heart was…it truly was deceitful, at least for a time.

It is hard to believe that some people are not who you think they are. I would also say it is shocking sometimes to find out that you are not who you thought you were. We all live sometimes with illusions of who we are. We even put up façades for other people. We only show them what we want them to see. We disguise ourselves so that others have an illusion of who we really are. Some of us may say that we have seemingly good excuses to not be true. Maybe you feel you can’t trust people or you have been hurt, so you hide. Or maybe you are afraid of being judged, especially for those of you who live in a “Christian” community. Or maybe you aren’t true because you are afraid that the person you want to be real with will not love you or accept you for who you are. The truth is, however, is that we can never be fulfilled in our relationship with God or with other people unless we are real.

I realized with my friend, however, that yes his heart had deceived him and I could not trust him at that moment. The first step in knowing the way the heart is-is to admit that it is indeed…deceitful. The heart deceives the person that it dwells within and it deceives others. But if we know that we ourselves, apart from the constant influence of God are falsehearted, then we can take chances on one another to be honest and genuine.

Falsehearted…I like that word as a synonym for deceitful. False-it is untrue and lying. We must admit that we have not been honest with ourselves, with others, and with God.

Sometimes, however, we only begin being honest with ourselves but then we can’t be honest with others or open with God because we do not like what we see in ourselves. This is where we have to make the decision to change something.

Yes, the ways of the flesh are evil but the ways of the Spirit of God never lead us astray.

Jeremiah 17 goes on to say in verse 10, "I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds."

The way we are without God is deceitful but He already sees that even when we do not admit it. He sees every flaw, every blemish, every dirty sin that penetrates to the deepest darkest secrets of our hearts and souls. He knows what we think about ourselves and how we see others. He knows that we are, without him, drawn to evil and drawn to the things that do not last in this world. He searches our hearts, even as deceitful as they are, and he tests the innermost parts of us. This should honestly be a bit scary for those of us who profess a belief and indwelling of something greater than ourselves. I have found that indeed our hearts can deceive us and others if we allow them to, but we have a choice to deceive or to be true.

There are only two options in my opinion. You can choose to either remain in your deceiving ways or you can choose genuine life. Not that we become perfect at that point, but we begin to operate out of something that is in its purest form true. It is absolutely beautiful to rise in the morning and give of a real and devoted heart to others and to God. I like what the verses preceding verse 9 say in Jeremiah 17.

Choosing to follow your own deceitful heart…
Jeremiah 17:5-6
Thus says the LORD:"Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”

Choosing to follow your heart under the influence of the Lord…
Jeremiah 17:7-8
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit."

Sometimes it is difficult and even unbearable to be real with ourselves, but we can’t expect to be honest with others until we do so. We are led by deceiving affections and mindsets, but the truth is that we are capable of not living that way. It hurts, but it is most fulfilling to be real and genuine. It allows us to be intricately intertwined with the Lord, so that even in hard times we are able to flourish. It allows us to be entwined with other people and their hearts to most know one another in the fullest and most gratifying ways.

The second part of my conversation with my friend led me to the part where we are able to see others the way God sees them when we stop being led by deceitful hearts. We can see them in their identity in Christ, no matter who they are or what they have done. We are able to love them wholeheartedly with true affection because we are not deceived by our own façade or by theirs. We are even able to confront ourselves and others because we can truly say we know them and we do not want them to go on a certain path that fulfills the objects of a deceitful heart. When we see others through God’s eyes we start to treat them as precious people who have value and who are unique-who all have hearts that can be broken and mended with the way we interact with them.

Even if someone tells me that their heart is deceitful I want to view them through this mindset. I want to be able to see them for who they can be, even if they are not there yet. That is how I want to be viewed. None of us have truly arrived yet, we are all on the journey together.

Some would argue with me and say that deceitful is just the way the heart is. Some would say that we can’t help the way the heart is. Some would mock me and say that I am naïve and that there is no way to change. But God did not design our hearts to be deceitful-there is an alternative to being falsehearted. That is not the way the heart is. When we begin to know the way the heart of God is, we begin to know how to be true hearted-the way the heart should be.

The way the heart is with the Holy Spirit is loyal, devoted, faithful, committed, steadfast, and constant. This is the way the heart should be so that we know God and others-we are able to overcome our deceiving ways and find exactly what we have been looking for all along.

In what way can you learn to be real and genuine, not being led by false affections and false ideas from a deceitful heart? What do you need to let go of in order to truly see the way God intended your heart to be in this life? How can the view you have of other people change to be seen through the heart of God?

One word in seeking this…intentionality.
Don’t be deceived by the way the heart is.