Wear Your Heart on Your Lips

My houseboats devo for our high school students:

When Jesus was asked, “which, of these hundreds of rules that I’ve been taught to follow, is the greatest, most important rule?” he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:36-40). In other words, “when you can love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself, everything else will work itself out, and God will be honored! So, stick to these and all those other rules will naturally be taken care of.”

There are two things we should note here:
1. Praise God that he included, “all” in his commandment! “All your heart… all your soul… all your mind.” That definitely leaves me no room to play with the temptation to think I can get away with giving him a little bit. Praise God that he lays it out for us and makes it clear!
2. Jesus first said, “with all your heart.” He didn’t leave out the heart. He didn’t simply say, “love the Lord your God with all of your soul” (who you are, what you’re doing) and “love the Lord your God with all of your mind” (all of your thoughts and intellect). Instead, he first mentions the place that, for Jesus, represented devotion, admiration, emotion; all that stuff that moves you, drives you, gives you passion to act. After all, loving God with your soul and with your mind, that comes from what your heart admires and what your heart is devoted to.

It seems to me, then, that our hearts are meant to be filled with love for God. If we are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart, that implies that all of our heart should be filled with love for God (or we should be working toward that, anyway).

If we have love for God, we must also be passionate about and love those things that he delights in: love, justice, righteousness, humility… you, those around you, those who are less fortunate than you. (Jeremiah 9:24, Psalm 149:4)

Interestingly, Jesus also said, “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart…” (Matthew 15:18a)

It’s kind of like Jesus said, “You wear your heart on your lips. People will know what your heart loves by the way you talk.”

And he continues by saying, “and this defiles a person.”

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I made some really close friends, Steve and Amy. We all lifeguarded at the pool on campus. In our free time we off-roaded in the jeep that Steve was rebuilding (yeah, rebuilding – I don’t know how many times we got “stuck” on top of Mt. Baldy and had to wait for Steve to get the jeep back to working condition). We had a blast hanging out together and grew pretty close throughout the summer.

When school started again so did my second job. I became pretty busy doing school-work and working two jobs. Steve, Amy, and I were pretty used to hanging out everyday, but when school started I just couldn’t manage hanging out everyday on top of taking care of my responsibilities.

One evening, Steve called and said, “Hey, Amy and I were thinking of taking the jeep out again tonight, come with us!” I told him I had tons of homework and I was on duty at work till 11pm. He was upset that the last time he had asked to hang out I also had work, so he told me, “well call me when you’re free ‘cuz we never get to hangout anymore.” I felt like that was pretty lame – we had totally been hanging out together, just not every single day, like we had in the summer.

About 15 minutes later, I was sitting at work and I received a text message from Steve. It read, “Forget Stephanie, she’s being a [brat]. She’s not coming with us.”

Immediately, my heart sank and I thought, this was totally meant for Amy, not me. And that means that they’re talking about me behind me back. And that’s totally not fair! I have other things to do! I was devastated and texted him back, “I think you meant to send this to Amy, but I want to let you know that I got it and that really hurt my feelings.”

Since then, our friendship has never been the same again. I saw that he had bitterness and resentment stored up in his heart. I got a glimpse of what was in his heart through the words he chose to use, and it was ugly.

Granted, that wasn’t his whole heart. I had seen parts of his heart before that I loved and I loved to be around – we were close friends! But that little peek into that part of his heart caused me to wonder if I could trust him and if he really valued me and if our relationship was a safe place for me to be who God made me.

James, a follower of Jesus, a servant of God who holds great spiritual authority, the writer of the biblical book of James, said, it is a deception for any of us to think that Jesus can be Lord over our life, without also becoming Lord over our tongue. He wrote “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless” (James 1:26). Wow! Our tongues can render our religiousness, our being doers of God’s commandments (James 1:22-25), worthless. Words can completely work against all of our actions. We’ve heard before that actions speak louder than words… D.H. Lawrence, a well-known, early 20th Century author wrote, “Oh, words are action good enough, if they’re the right words.” And maybe they’re action bad enough, hurtful enough, if they’re the wrong ones.

I’m thinking that how we talk to one another, the things we say, even when joking, exposes the depths of our hearts – our bitterness, our anger, our resentment, our disregard for a creator who loves his creation. I think that the things we say are as impactful as our actions toward one another. I think that our religious actions can be negated by our consitent sarcasm.

Houseboats Prep

Sunday I take off, with 7 other youth leaders and 22 high school students, to Sonshine Specialized Camping Ministires (Houseboats Summer Camp). I'm very excited to spend my time with these students and leaders. I know that most of us are looking forward to the vacation aspect of the trip (myself included), but I'm also very excited about some of the difficult conversations that I know will come up. Some of these students have been dealing with issues that are just so much larger than they are (not too large for God). My heart is made happy to know that I can walk alongside them as they deal with these things. I definitely don't have the answers they want, but I can help them carry the weight of these things and help them trudge through the mud puddles that result from these things.

I've been tasked (lovingly) with writing one of the devotions that the students will read during their houseboat experience. I'm a little bit stuck. Chris, our Wwonderful youth pastor (praise God for him!) gave us writers these instructions:

I have been prayerfully seeking an overarching theme for our trip, but have not had a sense of peace about what that theme is. Rather, I have a sense of clarity and peace about what our students need or are searching for. So rather than leading with a theme, I would like for each of us to sit before God with the needs that I suggest and others that you are aware of, and then craft a devotional that you believe speaks to the needs. I believe that our overarching theme will emerge as we bring these different devos into one booklet.

• In a word, Passion.
• I believe that our students are looking for something worth dying for, which would give them a reason and purpose to live.
• I believe that our students need reminded of the real difference that God's existence, activity, grace, power, and justice make in our world and in our lives.
• And I believe that our students need to see that following God has implications for the "big things" of our life and the "small things" (Matthew 25:21).
• Even our students who are currently active in their pursuit of God, I think it is a critical time that their questions/thoughts are rooted in a deep love of God rather than a love of knowledge.
• Ultimately, our students need to fall more in love with God with their whole heart that leads them to love God with their strength. How can we create time and space for them to be with God and fall more in love with God such that we see their actions/decisions change?

So here I sit... God please prepare my heart to process your Word and hear from your Spirit. Please direct me in the way I should walk during this time with these students. Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)