Thought for Today
Deuteronomy 29:19 All who hear the words of this oath and bless themselves, thinking in their hearts, "We are safe even though we go our own stubborn ways" . . .
Jeremiah 31:33 "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."
Romans 2:15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, . . .
Ephesians 1:17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints,
The devotional I read this morning ended, as always, with a prayer. It began, “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord . . .” I do not believe the author really believed that her heart literally had eyes. I was reminded of one of my favorite Jimmy Buffett songs, Knees of My Heart, with the refrain, “I'm down on the knees of my heart/Down here on the knees of my heart.” I do not believe Jimmy Buffett really believed that his heart literally had knees. Neither do I believe Moses thought anyone literally thought in their hearts; nor, do I believe Jeremiah thought God would literally engrave words on our hearts. Until I did a search on my computer, I had no idea that the line about ‘the eyes of your heart’ came from Paul’s letter to the Romans.
I suspect there is some assigned name to our proclivity to associate eyes with hearts or knees with hearts. Anthropomorphize means to “ascribe human features to something.” Implicit in that definition is that the ‘something’ is not itself human. Maybe I can create the term ‘anthropomorphize squared’ (A2) and somehow develop an equation? (You can take the minister out of engineering, but . . .).
Midway through seminary, I transferred from one seminary to another. One of the first courses I took in my new seminary, from which I ultimately graduated, was Christian Worldview. It was a required course for all students and was the first time I encountered the word ‘worldview,’ and the first course I ever took with a philosophical orientation. Great course, great professor! But that course clarified and reinforced one of the most endearing and enduring lessons I learned in seminary, “Words have great power.” Those of you who majored in English or any of the written Arts may be shouting in your mind with the mouth of your heart a loud, Homer Simpson, “Duh!” But, it was a bit of a revelation to an engineer.
Yesterday, I referenced Psalm 19, “14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” It should go without saying that the psalmist did not literally worship a rock. The psalmist certainly was familiar with the Ten Commandments and the abhorrence of idols and images.
In all of these verses and lyrics, the writers and composers are using metaphor and poetry to convey deeper truth. I was blessed to take a seminary course on the book of Psalms. The professor is an expert in biblical history and Semitic languages. We read the Psalms in Hebrew and learned about Hebrew poetry. The eyes of my heart were opened to a world of new meaning in even the most familiar and beloved Psalms.
Now, as I read and study scriptures, I am reminded of Paul’s words to the Corinthians, “13:11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.“ One of my own ‘childish ways’ has been to limit myself to prose, ignoring the greater truths of poetry and metaphor. There are greater truths in God’s revealed Word that are only apparent when I get down on the knees of my heart and open the eyes of my heart to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I thank our Creator God for opening the eyes of my heart to those truths.
Stay safe, be open to God’s Word, trust God,
Pastor Ray