Keep the Heart

“Your heart rate is too low,” my doctor said.

At a recent physical, my doctor did a baseline EKG and discovered that my resting heart rate was far below normal. I then found myself searching for a cardiologist for the first time in my nearly forty-eight years of life. A week later, I was given a heart rate monitor to wear. The contraption was glued to my chest and I wore it 24/7 for a week. I hope to soon learn the results.

As we well know—whether we passed 9th grade biology or not—the heart is what keeps us alive. This muscle pumps blood through the circulatory system to the rest of the body and beats about 100,000 times a day. It rests in the center of our chest and is central to our life and wellness.

I don’t know about you, but I rarely think about the work my heart is doing and until I hit forty, I hardly thought about what it needed to remain healthy. But our heart does need monitoring and care. That’s why the doctor listens to it at each visit and urges patients to stay away from fried and fatty foods.

The Bible talks about the heart a lot. Not so much our physical heart—though we ought to steward its care. Rather, the Bible talks about our spiritual heart, what lies at the center of who we are. Contrary to cheesy romance movies, when the Bible talks about our heart, it doesn’t mean the source of our feelings as opposed to our thoughts, as in “just follow your heart.” Rather, the Bible uses the word “heart” to refer to the core of who we are and it includes our thoughts, feelings, desires, choices, and will. All these act on and influence the other, with our desires often leading the way.

The Bible also teaches us that the heart is fallen in sin—a condition which began with the fall of man in Genesis 3. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). It is not our circumstances or what other people do or say that is the source of our problems. As Jesus taught, it is not what is outside of us that defiles us, but what is in us. “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20-23). James teaches that disordered desires of the heart cause our conflicts in life, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1).

Because of this, Proverbs urges us to guard the heart, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (4:23). The Hebrew word for “keep” is the same word used to talk about the watchmen who stand watch on the walls of the city, alert and ready to respond when enemies come near. The word is used to mean preserving or maintaining as well as protecting and guarding.[1] When it comes to keeping our heart, we need to both preserve and protect it.

To preserve our heart, we keep it healthy. We nurture it and tend to it by feasting on the Word of God. We allow the Word to examine and try our hearts. God gave us His Spirit who uses the Word to sanctify our hearts—to change and transform us from the inside out. The more we study and meditate on the Word, the more we see the true state of our hearts. We see those things which don’t belong, the sins which we so easily ignore. We see the pride, self-righteousness, and selfishness. We the see ways in which we fail to love God with all heart, our disordered desires and idols we worship—those things we look to for hope and life and meaning apart from God. As the Spirit uses the Word to convict us and show us our sin, we look to his grace to remind us of the gospel and who we are in Christ. We confess and repent and rejoice in the gospel which saves us. The Spirit then helps us remove those idols we worship and grow in greater love and knowledge of our Savior.

We also must guard our heart, keeping watch for those things which tempt, deceive, and draw us into sin, including ungodly influences from the world and temptations from evil. As Ephesians 6 reminds us, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (v.12). We wear our Ephesians 6 armaments into battle each day, aware that arrows are flying at us left and right. And we follow Jesus’ command to watch and pray (Matthew 26:41).

In all our heart-keeping, we must never forget that God is the ultimate heart-keeper for nothing can separate us from his great love for us in Christ. And more, he has provided the means of grace for us to preserve and protect our heart. We have the gift of the Spirit who lives within us, the very power of God—the same power who raised Christ from the dead. We have all the promises of God fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We have access to the throne of grace. We have the very Word of God to read, study, and meditate upon. And we have the community of faith which walks beside us in the journey.

No doubt, I am very aware of my physical heart these days and the need to monitor it. To keep and protect it. Even as I do so, I know it has an expiration date. However, my spiritual heart does not. How much more ought I to keep it? For it is my life. “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (4:23).

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

[1] With All Your Heart by A. Craig Troxel, p. 155.

Join the Launch Team for The Great Big Sad

The Great Big Sad releases soon and I’d love for you to join the launch team! What’s a launch team, you ask? It’s a team of people who get to read the book before anyone else and then spread the word about the book.

How do you join the team?

1. Register to join the team here. Once registered, you’ll receive a digital copy of the book in your email as well as images you can share on social media. The first fifty people who participate in launch team duties receive a free hard copy of the book once it releases.

2. In addition, you can participate in the launch team’s Facebook group. Meet other readers and talk about the book together. I will be participating as well and look forward to interacting with you about the book. To join that group, click here.

Coming Soon: The Great Big Sad

Grief and loss. It’s a reality we all experience at some point in our lives. It’s something we don’t think about until it happens. Perhaps you remember the first person of significance in your life who died, how you felt, how you grieved. Grief always hits us in ways we could not have anticipated. It is painful. It’s multi-layered. It’s often complicated. It comes in waves. And it never really goes away.

What makes grief all that more challenging is when we need to help our children navigate their own grief. How do we walk alongside our children as they face the loss of someone they loved and cherished? How do we help them when we are caught up in our own grief? How do we point them to Christ in the midst of such sorrow?

My third book in the series of books about siblings, Josh and Mia, releases soon. You may have read Tell God How You Feel or God Hears Your Heart—both books are directed at helping children learn to bring their emotions to the Lord. The Great Big Sad follows Josh and Mia as they hear the hard news that a beloved relative has died. We see them respond to the news in their own way. Throughout the book, they learn ways to express their grief, to talk about it with others, and even ways to honor their loved one’s memory. They also find comfort and hope in the gospel and the promise of the resurrection.

The book includes a letter to parents, helping parents with practical tips in coming alongside their children as they grieve. There are also discussion questions to use with children to talk about what they learned from the story. While The Great Big Sad is the story about a hard and painful loss, it’s also a hope-filled book, one that points children to Jesus.

The Great Big Sad is available for pre-order now. Sign ups for a launch team will be up soon. Stay tuned to The Great Big Sad landing page here on the blog for a link to sign up. Launch team members will receive early access to the book and help spread the word about its release. I hope you will join us!

Learning Contentment

“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content” (Phil. 4:11).

My husband has been unemployed the past few weeks, a situation we’ve not experienced together during our entire twenty-six years of marriage. But I remember well the times my father was unemployed. In fact, it wasn’t until mid-life that I realized how much those years impacted me—such as the way I hate to see an empty refrigerator or the way I make certain to never run out of things in the pantry. And while my son and his friends enjoy browsing and shopping at the local thrift store, the thought of doing so produces almost a physical response in me, which I’ve realized is rooted in feelings of shame I felt from times when I had no other choice but to wear pre-owned clothes.

So, when my husband informed me of his change in job status, I felt my stomach tighten. My heart pounded. My eyes burned. And I felt panicked. I was instantly transported back to my childhood where memories of not having enough swirled in my mind, along with all the feelings of worry, uncertainty, and shame. Memory after memory played on a reel, many I hadn’t revisited in decades.

I took a breath and whispered, “this is not the same thing.”

And the Lord gently reminded me of the words of Paul in Philippians 4:

“Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (11-13).

The Apostle Paul experienced both times of abundance and times of lack. He knew what it was like to be full and to be empty. Elsewhere in the New Testament, we read of other areas in which Paul experienced hardship and suffering. In 2 Corinthians 11, he listed a number of trials he experienced: “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches” (vv. 24-28). Talk about suffering!

And yet, regardless of his circumstances, Paul felt contentment. The Puritan minister, Jeremiah Burroughs, defined contentment as: “that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every situation.” It is an inner satisfaction in Christ and who he is for us. It is confidence and trust in his faithful provision of grace. It is resting in his character, knowing he only provides that which is good for his beloved children.

Interestingly, the Greek word for contentment in Philippians 4 is only used here in this verse. It means self-sufficient, independent. It was a word used by Greek philosophers to describe self-reliance, of not needing anyone or anything, of being sufficient for everything within oneself. Paul took this secular word from his day and used it to mean Christ-sufficiency. Through the power of the Spirit at work within him, he was sufficient. His strength was found in Christ’s strength. He could face and endure everything, because of Jesus Christ.

As I wrestle with contentment in my own life, I’m encouraged by Paul’s testimony. Specifically that contentment was a lesson Paul learned. It was something he grew in. Not in a sense of learning facts; rather, he learned through experience. He saw God’s goodness to him in times of plenty and in times of want. He experienced God’s strength in the midst of suffering. And through that, he learned the joy of the Lord.

Regardless of his circumstances.

In my own uncertainties these days, I find myself rehearsing the character and goodness of God to my heart. “For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations” (Ps. 100:5).

How about you? Have you learned the secret of contentment?

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

God's Comfort for a Mother's Cares

“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul” (Ps. 94:19).

A mother has many cares for her children. No matter her children’s age or stage, their needs are never far from her mind. Many of her worries come naturally as the result of living in a fallen world where children catch illnesses, face bullies on the playground, and struggle with academics. In a broken, sin-stained world, she can’t help but have concern for their safety from those who might do them harm. She can’t help but worry about the temptations they face online and with friends. She can’t help but worry about their future.

Indeed, the cares of a mother's heart are many.

While the ESV translates the Hebrew here as “cares,” other translations use the word “anxiety.” “When the anxieties of my heart are many…” The word literally means “disquieting thoughts.” Consider the anxious thoughts you’ve had about your children. Those thoughts that keep you up at night and follow you throughout the day. Thoughts that never seem to let you alone. Thoughts like: What if this illness worsens? What if she gets behind in school? What if he doesn’t make friends? What if we can’t find the help she needs? What if we can’t afford…? What if…?

David Powlison once wrote, “anxiety presumes a great distance between God and my present concern.” But the psalmist reminds us that God does known about our anxieties and cares. This verse is a reminder that God isn’t far away. Our circumstances are not beyond his knowledge and care for us. In fact, the psalmist then tells us that God’s consolations cheer the soul. “Consolation” is another word for comfort. It’s the same word used in Isaiah 66:10-14 where the prophet compares a mother comforting her baby to God’s comfort and care for his people. The word for “cheer” or in other translations, “delight” is to soothe or stroke, just as mother does to calm her baby.

And that’s what the Lord does for us in our anxieties.

Psalm 94 is a psalm about God’s people experiencing injustice at the hand of their enemies. It calls them to wait for the Lord to enact justice on their behalf. And as they wait, to remember who God is for them. He is a covenant keeping God who “will not abandon his heritage” (v.14), whose steadfast love holds them (v.18), and who is their stronghold, a rock of refuge (v.22). In the midst of the fears and anxieties of this life, our God is with us. He comforts us with his presence. Even more, he is our helper and provider. He is our strength and our place of safety. Like a child with his mother, we can run to our Father and find the comfort and help we need.

Calvin comments: “The heavier our calamities grow, we should hope that Divine grace will only be the more powerfully manifested in comforting us under them, but should we through weakness of the flesh be vexed and tormented by anxious cares, we must be satisfied with the remedy which the Psalmist here speaks of in such high terms. Believers are conscious of two very different states of mind. On the one hand, they are afflicted and distressed with various fears and anxieties; on the other, there is a secret joy communicated to them from above, and this in accommodation to their necessity, so as to preserve them from being swallowed up by any complication or force of calamity which may assail them.”

I like how Calvin describes God’s comfort as a “secret joy” that God gives to us. He sees our needs and meets us where we are with his presence. He sooths our hearts with the truths of who he is. He helps us see that he is greater than our fears. And if we have any doubt of his provisions of grace for us, we need look no further than the cross of Christ. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

The reality is, we will experience hard and fearful and troubling things in this fallen world. As moms, we will feel anxious for our children. We’ll worry about their health, their growth, their friendships, their safety. We’ll worry about their future. We’ll think all those “what if?” thoughts. But God’s comfort keeps and preserves us from being consumed by our troubles. His consolations soothe our soul. We find him to be our refuge in all our troubles.

Father, I come to you with many concerns and cares for my children. My mind is often filled with questions of “What if this or that happens?” Forgive me for when my anxieties turn my gaze from you and onto my circumstances and I forget that you are greater. I know you love my children far more than I can, for you love with a perfect love. Be with them now. Shower them with your love and grace. Intervene in our circumstances and be our refuge. Comfort my heart. Sooth my soul. Give me that “secret joy” in the midst of worrying circumstances. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Photo by Bethany Beck on Unsplash

Whom Do You Trust?

I never realized how much the fear of man gripped my heart until I studied and researched for my books on idolatry and fear. In doing so, I saw how much caring about the thoughts of others influenced my choices, in everything from parenting to housework. I saw how I worshipped the praise and adoration of others and how I found purpose and meaning in how others responded to me. It opened my eyes to the true content of my heart and my need for God’s transforming grace.

Ultimately, I realized I placed my trust in all the wrong places.

The prophet Jeremiah prophesied to God’s people, to warn them of the consequences for their idolatry. If you are familiar with the book, you know he was not well received. That’s because he got to the heart of the matter. He revealed the depths of Israel’s depravity and how far they had wandered from God. In essence, he held up a mirror so they could see the true state of their condition and they didn’t like it. In chapter 17, it tells us that their sin had become so great it was “written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart” (v.1).

In verses 5-10, Jeremiah then contrasts the one who trusts in man versus the one who trusts in the Lord. To trust here is to put hope and confidence in another. “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD” (v.5). When we fear man, when we look to others for the rescue that only God can give—our hearts turn away from the One who made us and calls us his own. In Jeremiah’s day, Babylon threatened to conquer them and God’s people turned to political alliances for help and deliverance, rather than place their hope in God himself. One who trusts in man, rather than God, 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” (v.6).

In the Bible, the wilderness is always a place of danger, of darkness, and of emptiness. Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden of Eden because of their sin and enter the wilderness outside the flaming sword, a place of spiritual barrenness where they would no longer commune with God. Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years, a place filled with poisonous snakes and bitter water, and only survived because of the gracious provision of God through manna and water from the rock. Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness for forty days, and unlike Israel, was faithful to God, sustained by the same word God had given to Israel in their wilderness wanderings.

Jeremiah contrasts the one who trusts in man with one who trusts in the Lord: “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” (vv.7-8). The one who trusts in God finds refuge and security in him—that’s what the Hebrew refers to in “whose trust is the LORD.” He is compared to a tree planted by the water which roots run deep. No matter the heat or lack of rain, this tree always grows and bears fruit. The one who trusts in the Lord, who fears him rather than man, is one who is always spiritually nourished and satisfied. When the heat of circumstances come, when the year of drought arrives, he is not worried or anxious, nor does he turn to counterfeit saviors; he finds his refuge in God alone. As Jesus told the woman at the well, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn.4:14). Author Ed Welch summarizes this Jeremiah 17 passage: “fear of man is a curse that leaves us feeling destitute or empty. The alternative, trust in God, is a blessing that leads to life and fullness.”[1]

Jeremiah then explains why we are drawn to the fear of man: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? 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” (vv.9-10). The heart is the core of who we are. It is the center of our wills, desires, thoughts, emotions, and choices. It is what drives us. And it is so deceitful, we cannot understand it. We are filled with self-deception. We “follow our heart” into the wilderness where we cannot survive.

But God understands. He knows our heart. And because he knows, he made a way for us to have new hearts. Jeremiah 24:7 looks to that day, a day fulfilled in Christ: “I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.” Jesus came to this wilderness we call home, to live the life we could not live and die the death we deserved. In doing so, he brought us back into fellowship with God. The Spirit gives us new hearts that can now turn to him in trust. This means we don’t have to fear man. We don’t have to turn to others for hope and deliverance. We don’t have to look to counterfeit saviors to tell us we are worthy or to give our lives meaning. We don’t have to look for approval from other people. Because we are united to Christ by faith, we have the approval of the only One that matters. And when God looks at us, he says “With you I am well pleased.”

Whom do you trust? Do you fear man or God? “The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant” (Ps. 25:14).

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

[1] Journal of Biblical Counseling, Fall 1994.