I am posting this while on vacation in the Okanagan, a beautiful piece of God’s creation.
Thanks to some very generous friends, our family has been coming here for over ten years. It is an incredible week. The kids get to have fun together and benefit from all the amenities. Andrea and I enjoy long walks, daily exercise and extended prayer times. We drink deeply of all things that help us re-connect our hearts. This year requires special graces to restore the soul – it’s been a long and in many ways, tough year.
In the busyness of life, we often forget that the heart is God’s most magnificent creation. It is the most valuable and precious part of our being. This is why the bible says, “Above all else, guard your heart.”
How can we tell we are neglecting the heart? We have no margins in life, we are maxed out in everyway. There is no room to pause and ponder in our schedules. There is no money to invest in things that matter most like personal retreats and marriage encounters. There is no energy to exercise or spend some extra time in the evening talking with your adult children. The human heart was never meant to live like that.
The heart is your truest self. It is the real you. It is the prize over which two kingdoms continually fight. The most fundamental fact of life is this – your story is the drama of a long and customized assault on your heart (the real you) by the one who sees what you can be and fears it. Everyone you ever lock eyes with is under the same assault.
When I say that this week of vacation requires special graces to restore the soul, this is what I am meaning. We come here to be rescued.
As a leader, we have to think more broadly. Marriage is the sanctuary of the heart. You have been entrusted with the heart of another human being. Whatever else your life’s great mission will entail, loving and defending this heart next to you is part of your great quest. The same is true of your children. Loving, defending, blessing the hearts of your kids is also a great quest. By extension, the same can be true, although in different ways, that the hearts of your staff, volunteers and key stakeholders of any enterprise is a quest to engage as well.
So I am sending you a link to our latest Podcast series on, “Our Internal World.” Jake and I published a three part series about the internal world.
You can find the podcast here:
Here are some thoughts to peak your interest. I hope you enjoy.
“The heart is our hidden centre. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.” (CCC 2563)
“When you experience someone having a disproportionately strong reaction to you, you are experiencing their internal world (thoughts, emotions, desires, interpretations, prior wounds/hurts).”
“One powerful part of our internal world is the story we tell ourselves. We need to be very careful about believing these “stories” and allowing them to take root in our hearts.”
“The internal observer is a gift from God, it is a mechanism for recognizing the rich, detailed story that’s inside my head and then wondering, “Is this story true? It can save us a lot of pain.”
“When highly emotional, our capacity for unbiased awareness is greatly reduced.”
“We make interpretations and agreements very often. The internal world is constantly making meaning to things (comments, interactions, experiences) and then we either agree or disagree with our interpretation. Keep in mind, the enemy wants to be master of those interpretations.”
“We usually have three responses to threats: fight, flight, or freeze. Leaving our typical responses to threat unexamined can cause various problems.”
“How we coped as children rarely works in our adult relationships.”
“100% of men have an internal world and every one of us are making interpretations and agreements that are changing the course of our lives.”
“Jesus wants to come into our inner worlds and meet us there and save us in them.”
“The heart really matters. It is me.”
“It’s not what’s happening to us, it’s the meaning we attach to it.”
“The past is always present.”
“Be careful what you hear, be more careful with the interpretation.”
“Things are not always as they appear.”
God bless and I hope you get some vacation soon!
simple, but insightful. Thank you Brett!