The head and the heart

Invest.

That's the word.  Or the concept.  That's the idea.  Or the abstraction.  That's the reality.

How do I do it?

"Invest."  That demands effort.  That demands action.  That demands....surrender. (?)

One of these things is not like the other.

Oh, that the distance between my head and my heart was shorter.  That is what I found myself asking God to do in me yesterday.  I didn't quite know where it came from, but now it has become slightly clearer to me, though God is still slowly revealing it to me in His time.

The fact that I'm writing this might be ironic.  You will see why soon.  Just trust me.

My head knows the stuff.  I mean, it doesn't know all of it or even most of it.  But I know how to recite all the books of the Bible and I know the latest (yet not too mainstream) Christian songs and I know about Jesus and His character and His faithfulness.  I know how He loves me unconditionally and I know how He forgives me.  I know the power of the gospel and the truth that by His death and resurrection, I am set free.  I know how He wants to know me.  I know how He desires justice and the manifestation of His glory to be a reality for all people and through all nations, tribes, and tongues.  I know I have been called to share His good news to all the lost.  I know nothing else can satisfy me like He can.  I know these things.  I know that intimacy is important.  I know community is something God beautifully designed to call us up to Him and to help us (though it is not a substitute for God alone).  I know that I need to dive deep into His word, to call upon His name, to heed to His Holy Spirit and to allow it to take over me.  I know I am to feed the hungry, love the orphans, care for the widows.  I know that I have to die daily.  I know I must be humble.  I know that I am not my own.  I know that I need His presence, His power, His love.  I know these things.  In my head.

But lately, God has wrecked me.  He has said to me, "Child, this is not what your heart looks like."  Because if my heart knew these things, I would be moving.  I would be investing.

Truth be told, I love to read about these things, to write about these things, to meditate and ponder over these things.  I like to worship God through poetry and I am quick to sing a song to God or speak a truth to someone.  I like to analyze things, spiritual things.  I like to talk to God.  I like to talk to people.  I like to proclaim radical things that I believe His love calls us to do, or not to do.  I could talk about Jesus all day, about what it means to follow Him, to give up worldly comfort, to break down structures, to stare deep into His eyes, Oh I love to talk of how this is true!  How His Spirit speaks to us, how He comes to us with fire and a mighty rushing wind, how His power is still alive and active.  How He can heal.  How He can repair us, His sons and daughters.  I love to talk about how prayer works, how the Holy Spirit falls over us like a blanket in the sky, how God reveals Himself to us in magnificent, exciting ways.  I could talk to you about signs and wonders.  How people can come to the faith when His followers are made bold, when they give up everything and go, no matter where or when or for how long.  I would talk to you about how God can change even the hardest heart, can make even the dirtiest sinners righteous, how even depression and darkness flee at His light, how the enemy is crushed and how in even in the most hopeless circumstances, there is hope.

I could talk about that all my days.

I could read about that every morning.

I could sing about that each of my evenings.

I could write about that until my time comes to an end.

And I do.

And I will.

And it is not bad to do those things, oh no!  It is a beautiful gift indeed, sent straight from the Father to glorify Himself.  We talk about Him to make Him more known.  We read about Him to learn of His truths and His love so that we may spread them across the nations.  We sing about them as a way of exalting Him who is the Most High, Him who has the power to save the peoples of the world.  We write about Him so that others may be blessed by reading about what God is doing in our lives, what mysteries He has revealed to us about Himself.  His ability to glorify Himself in whatever passion it is He creates in us is absolutely incredible.  It is talented.  It is unheard of.  It is Jesus.

So, all these things I say I know, which, by the way, when I use the phrase "I know," there is a bit of self-criticism in that I think I know more than I actually do, all these things are in my head.  I meditate on them.  I think about them.  I am even adament, fired up about them at times.

But oh, if the distance from my head to my heart was shorter...

When I prayed that, I asked God, how?  It seems an impossible feat, a challenge to the flesh, but I do believe that is what God is working in me right now.

If the distance from my head to my heart was shorter, I would be moved.  I would act.  These truths that I know in my head would so compel me, so wreck me.  The pondering would become the acting.  I would go when He says go and I would go with every bit energy and focus and determination that I know He has placed within me.  I would hold fast to the promise that He has gone before me, that He will keep me strong and blameless to the end.  All the questions, doubts, and fears would have no place in me because I would be so overwhelmed, so full of His love, bursting at my every seam, having His love seep out of the pores of my skin.  I wouldn't second guess my God.  I would trust Him with a trust that is beyond myself.  I would love harder than I have ever loved, a love that is completely unselfish, a love that requires my time, my resources, my undivided attention and my unremitting passion.  I would speak boldly the word of God in the darkest, scariest places.  I would first go to the darkest, scariest places.  I would stop talking about it and start living it.

That's what I would do.

So, what does that mean for me now?  It means investing.  It means surrendering.

This definition of the word invest...is eerily representative of what the word has been meaning to me:

Devote (one's time, effort, or energy) to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result.

The word invest convicts me with its prefix- in.  You can't invest in something while standing on the outside of it.  You have to be in it, right in the middle of it.  Just as Jesus invested in us and entered into our sin and exploded it into a million pieces never to be seen again, so we must invest with that sort of ultimatum--eternity.

Our sin was crushed for eternity.

His love will save for eternity.

For eternity.

As in, forever.

But also as in, for your eternity. Dwelling with Him for the rest of your days. For your eternity. His love will save for eternity.

Sweet, sweet.

And this word does not imply a flakey, one-and-done deal.  This is an investment.  This is something that will require serious and real commitment with the expectation of a serious and REAL outcome.

God used a silly (though some would beg otherwise) modern-day popularity to teach me this whole new lesson, to reveal to me these things about myself.  He used college basketball.

"You're taking stats," He says.  Taking stats.  That means instead of being on the court, in the middle of all the action, I am on the sidelines.  So close, but I won't go inside the white lines.  I can see the game going on, as a matter of fact I must watch it intently.  I know all about the players, I know their weak spots, their strengths.  I know all about the Coach, I work closely alongside Him.  I know about the other team, I have studied them and learned of their tricky ways of playing.  I am knowledgeable of the game, but I'm not playing it.  I'm taking stats.

Invest.  I want to be in this thing.  Surrender.  That is where this starts.  Surrendering my head to believe even more the things that go against my earthly way of thinking, even the most radical truths.  Surrendering my heart to believe the things my head knows--or even the things my brain cannot comprehend.

In order to invest, I must surrender.

In order to experience healing, I must go into to the lives of the sick.

In order to experience people found, I must go into the lives of the lost.

In order to experience broken hearts repaired, I must go into the lives of the brokenhearted.

In order to experience hope, I must go into the lives of the hopeless.

In order to experience life, I must go into the lives of the dead.

In order to experience love, I must go into the lives of the hated.

In order to experience His glory, He must come into the life of this sinner.

At first I used the word "see" in the above set of phrases.  But then I changed it to "experience."

Because even people on the sideline can see it.

I want to live it.

I want to be covered in it.

I want to be right in the middle of it.

His glory.

May He throw my clipboard out the window.

I'm in the game, now.

LMB