The Heart

As English-speaking westerners, our seat of emotions is the “heart.” If we feel life strongly about something, we often express it metaphorically with words that incorporate our heart. For example, if someone has a “heart of gold,” it does not mean that the person has some metallic substance in their body, but rather to the generous nature of the individual. We know that a person who has a “heart of gold” is someone whose heart is in “the right place” and is kind and helps people who are in need. Gold is a prized substance and so is kindness.

On the other hand, a “hard-hearted” is a person who goes through life with a distrust and a lack of mercy towards others, even if they are suffering. Such a person must be treated cautiously. If the person’s heart is “cold” or even “of stone,” it indicates that the person is stubborn and callous toward others. They are not pleasant to be around.

It is also unpleasant to have a “heartache,” a burden so mentally or physically difficult that it makes life continuously painful. It may come from someone’s actions or words, or it may be self-inflicted. Life becomes a dreaded weight, and the affliction seems to be centered in our “heart.” It is where we feel our deepest and most pleasant emotions. We can have our heart “broken,” but we can also “pour our heart out” by confiding our true feelings to someone.  We are expressing what is the “heart of the matter” and not concealing what we think or feel is most important.

When we get to “the heart” of something, we are exploring and expressing our “deepest” feelings about a matter. We are to love the Lord our God “with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 13.3). We are to do this “wholeheartedly” as Joshua did (Joshua 14.8) all our lives, even when we are old, and not like Solomon, whose wives “turned his heart after other gods” (1 Kings 11.4).

However, not every culture refers to their heart to express such emotions. The Kewa people of Papua New Guinea, with whom we worked for many years, expressed many emotions with their liver. For example, if a person was excited, their liver “stood up,” if annoyed, their liver “was bitter,” or if happy, the liver was “sweet.” Liver in Kewa occurred in expressions to show emotions, the way English speakers use heart.

In Matthew 6.21 we read that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” What we prize most will be revealed in the way we respond to it and how we talk about it. We “set our heart” on certain things or people that we value. They become foremost because our deepest emotions, expressed in phrases using heart, reveal what we value most.

We read also about the “thoughts of the heart,” as when God saw how evil humans were in their heart, even from childhood. (Genesis 8.21). The Lord also feels it (metaphorically of course) “in his heart.” Paul expressed it this way, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you,the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people….” (Ephesians 1.18)

God hardened the “heart” of Pharaoh so that he would not let the people leave Egypt. Pharoah became obstinate and we can become that way as well. The book of Proverbs refers to the heart 75 times, including the “tablet of the heart,”and the book of Psalms has 127 references (in the NIV) to heart. (There are 149 references in the New Testament and 725 in the Bible.) Most verses illustrate the metaphorical use of heart to express attitudes, such as fear, strength, joy, purposes and desires.

A physical “heart attack” occurs when there is a lack of blood flow in the heart and its muscles begin to die. Over 90% of the people who suffer such an attach survive. However, around 805,000 people have a heart attack each year. About 1 in 5 of these attacks are “silent” and the person is not aware of it. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and it has held that distinction for decades. 

We can extrapolate and say that spiritually negative affairs of the heart are also the main cause of distrust and dysfunction between people. Spouses have a “change of heart” about one another and instead of continuing as “sweethearts,” they may “give their heart” to someone else. Their emotions of love, joy, and trust are transferred to another person, and the marriage goes “on the rocks” and they “call it a day.” Quite often they divorce.

God put wisdom into the heart of Solomon (1 Kings 10.24) and we should also seek God with wisdom to bring joy in our heart. “Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.” (Psalm 105.3) God also says “that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6.5). However, he encourages us to “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11.29) Therefore, like David, we should “give thanks to you, Lord, with all my [our] heart[s]; I [we] will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” (Psalm 9.1)

Fear is also expressed in the heart and In Leviticus 26.36 we read an example of what happens in disobedience to God’s commands: “As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight.” A verse that I memorized early in life has the commandment to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3.5-6)

God promises to give us wisdom in our heart (Proverbs 2.19) and that we should guard that wisdom and all that “flows from it.” (Proverbs 4.23) It bears repeating to say that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also (Matthew 6.21).

Karl Franklin