Heart on a Leash

I’m told that the pastor-theologian Jonathan Edwards was the keenest mind that America ever produced. He was one of the preachers God especially used during the 18th century to lead in the revival that came to be known as “The Great Awakening.” Edwards is also known for his thought and writing in the field of philosophy. One of his most important works in that field is his treatise on the freedom of the will.

Edwards insisted in that work that the human will (which he defined as “the mind choosing”) always makes its choice as it is directed by the person’s strongest desire at the moment. To put it in more modern lingo, the mind ALWAYS chooses by “listening to the HEART.”

You might object that you have often chosen a course of action because you were FORCED into it by your wife, your boss, your best friend, or the weather. Your heart wasn’t in it, it wasn’t at all what you DESIRED to do at the moment, but you chose it anyway.

But if you consider the exact circumstances of each choice, you will discover that Jonathan Edwards had it exactly right. When your boss told you to do something you didn’t care to do, you did it because you didn’t WANT to disappoint him or her, or simply because you WANTED to keep your job. Your conflicting desires at the moment came to a point where the strongest one won the battle. You gave in to your wife because you desired harmony with her more than your own way. You gave your wallet to the mugger because you desired your life more than your money. You cancelled the picnic on a rainy day because you didn't desire soggy sandwiches.

So, all of our mental decisions, and hence, our actual choices of action, are prompted by the desires of our hearts. The strongest desire ALWAYS WINS.

This is a challenging idea, at least in my mind. When I examine my own heart--I mean when I HONESTLY examine it, I find all kinds of selfish desires: wealth, ease, comfort, the respect of my fellow man, the love of my wife and children, self-esteem, and so on. And yeah, there are other darker desires lurking down deep that I don’t wish to even LOOK at, let alone acknowledge or make public.

One of my ongoing, overpowering desires involves expressing my love of beauty and creativity. I enjoy the ACT of creating, whether musically, visually, or poetically. I love to engage in, observe, revel in, immerse myself, lose myself in the realm of the beautiful. Sometimes I find myself desiring beauty so much, it is like a narcotic--like a golden idol I’m tempted to WORSHIP.

This is one of the many reasons I need the Lord in my life. I need His presence. I need His truth. I need His only begotten Son Jesus the Christ. I need the Holy Spirit’s promptings to grab my heart and SHAKE it. I need my DESIRE for HIM to grow...and grow...and grow.

I need my desires to pant for God like an exhausted deer longs for streams of water. I need God’s word to follow me through my day, poking me like a cattle prod when my darker desires start to belch their poison from far, far down in my soul. I need a ready antidote for that sinful venom when I taste it on my tongue.

Desire can be a wonderful, meaningful, glorious thing--as can creativity and beauty.

But I must never forget that the most UGLY and POISONOUS being that ever lived began as the most beautiful of the heavenly host. And one of the things he counted on in Eden was that the woman would see in that forbidden fruit a thing “desirous for making one wise.”

Desire is like an awesome, gorgeous animal. It’s a huge, splendid tiger. There is coming a day when all the tigers of humanity’s desires will finally be let loose to roam freely throughout the land, never to hunt or kill again in all God’s new creation… 

But that day isn’t here yet. For now, that huge, beautiful beast must be on a strong leash. I can’t afford to totally set it free. Because all of my sins began, and will continue to begin, at the point of my strongest desire.

Lord God, may your strong, wise, beautiful hand always hold tightly to my heart’s leash.

Amen.

MNA

5/3/2020

Beauty's Longing

Feather-fingered branches massage the morning sky--
a pale gray pallette awaiting a tarrying dawn;
voices from that distant wood echo
lower, far, far lower than my thoughts.
Music casts its magical curse on
my wooden ears of flesh, where the echoes die.

Elven languages leave me wandering,
wondering whether Tolkien heard them plainer:
songs across the western seas
where gray ships pass away, never returning...
Life of the song, heat of the flame, blindness of the light,
all beyond, far beyond my knowing.

But of Joy, Love, Truth, a mocking fragrance
bugles the hunt for one more day.
Through the gray a bow of promise breaks
and nettles of beauty pierce my stony depths.
At such tortured moments my soul would fly
into eager immolation, losing itself
in the One no mortal man could see, and live.


MNA
3.23.2016

Beauty's Renewal

I woke to find a world devoid of war
where no one bears a grudge or locks his door
or fears to wander naked in the wild
or trust an unknown neighbor with his child:
a world where threat and peril walk no more.

I opened eyes to gaze upon a garden
where none still knows the need to plead for pardon
or beg for alms or seek a healing balm
or find a sage her tortured mind to calm:
a place of grace and peace beyond the Jordan.

I rose to walk in wonder down the strand
now free from heaven’s curse on life or land
where oceans churn with only gentle tides
and nature with its lords no more collides:
a paradise unstained on every hand.

I left my dreams behind to enter bliss
where death and wrong my Prince will all dismiss
and offer there with riven hands and feet
the prize which here is only bittersweet:
the sleeping Beauty’s pledged, awakening Kiss.


MNA 4.26.2015