October 26, 2008: “Why doesn’t the heart want God?”

Dear Friend,

I woke up this morning not feeling well at all. It’s quite possible the pizza from last night got to me and that I’m now battling a bout of food poisoning. That being said, I took my Sunday to have an actual “day of rest.” I didn’t even shower, which is unusual for me. There’s something quite wonderful about sitting and lying around in your room for an entire day, wearing something exceedingly comfortable (along with slippers,) not combing your hair or wearing your contacts, and just taking the day off. I eventually got restless, though, and started reading a book which happened to provide me anything but rest.

I was reading more of Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be. Interestingly, I ended up reading a chapter that asked some questions I had been pondering myself. Plantinga explores in this chapter (“The Progress of Corruption”) why and how sin pervades over our lives. As sin works its way through our lives, it gives birth to more sin. Sin continues to corrupt as it grows and grows in the heart, mind, and soul of a person. This is the “how.” The “why” is more difficult to answer. Plantinga has discovered the only clear answer to why people continue to sin is that “the heart wants what it wants.[1]”

That doesn’t seem good enough for me, though, and I thin that’s the frustration Plantinga is addressing. As a Christian, someone who knows not only the penalty of sin but also the alternative, I find myself asking the same questions he asks:

“…why doesn’t the heart want God, trust God, look childlike to God for life’s joys and securities? Why doesn’t the heart seek final good where it can actually be found? Why turn again and again, in small matters and large, to satisfactions that are mutable, damaging, and imperiled?[2]”

The Bible says, “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.[3]” Jesus himself said, “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.[4]” So, as we know that “the wages of sin is death[5]” why, then, don’t we submit ourselves to God?[6] The reason, once again, goes back to the heart wanting what it wants.

I’ve been asking myself the same questions, pertaining to my own faith-walk. Why don’t I draw near to God when I know His way is so much better than mine? Even in the little things. At any given point in time, I don’t feel like praying or praising or reading my Bible. Yet, I know that praying can bring me into communion with the God I love, praising will please the God I love, and reading His Word can fill me with His life. I’m not saying this to make it sound easy, and therein lies the reason, I think, for our sin. It’s easy.

Aspiring to be more like Christ takes so much more than just praying, praising, and reading the Bible. You have to know why you pray, praise, and read beyond the simple action of each. Oftentimes, all three must work together in order to accomplish anything in your heart, that heart that’s so deceitful. It takes some work. Sometimes I think that our simply saying “faith, not works” can be misconstrued into allowing us to believe we don’t have to do anything. Christ has saved us, but He’s also given us the choice (I believe) to enter or not enter into communion with His Spirit. Therefore, it takes some work on our part.

This reminds me somewhat of what Nouwen said concerning solitude. Not so much solitude as in “being alone,” but solitude as in “from God alone.” That’s a tough idea to grasp in a world polluted with so many perverted facsimiles of what God has created. Yes, “from God alone,” but we can see God in His creation, which points back to God. However, as sin corrupts the world, God’s creation becomes corrupted as well, and is turned into marketable immediacies that can instantaneously, though only marginally, satisfy the deceit of our hearts. God doesn’t always feel as “immediate,” which is why we sin.

As bleak as this entry is, these have been my thoughts lately. Now I need to implement what I know. That’s the responsibility of self-reflection, I guess. I can’t just think constructive criticism and then say, “That was humbling,” and leave it at that. Nope. “Go, and sin no more” always follows repentance. Therefore, affirmative action must follow navel-gazing. I guess that can be our prayers for each other, friend, that we will act on what we know to be true. So, I pray you will draw near to God in these coming days, because He promises to draw near to you. It’s all a part of shalom.

Blessings.
Kailen

[1] Plantinga Jr., Cornelius. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995. pg. 62.
[2] Plantinga Jr., Cornelius. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995. pg. 62.
[3] Jeremiah 17:9, NIV
[4] Mark 7:21-22, NIV
[5] Romans 6:23, NIV
[6] “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (James 4:7-10, NIV)