The Dwelling Place of Eternity

Crying with someone is perhaps one of the most painful and beautiful things I have ever experienced. It’s not exactly something that we enjoy. In fact, crying isn’t something that we enjoy no matter who we are crying for. Most of us try to avoid it, especially when we are around other people. We believe that crying is a sign of weakness. In American culture we use phrases like “cry baby” and “Debby downer” to describe people who are unusually emotional. Even though it is never good to let your emotions impair your judgment and rule your life, they are also a crucial part of the human experience. Emotions may lead to conflict by causing us to say and do selfish and hateful things, but they can also inspire us to do what’s right.

Our emotions are our hearts’ way of speaking to us. They tell us what is in our heart. In the book of Proverbs it says, “above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it,” (Proverbs 4: 23 NIV). In other words, our hearts determine everything that we do. Every thought, feeling, word, and action flows from our hearts. This heart that I am referring to, of course, is not the physical organ beating in your chest as you read this but rather an abstract concept that we use to refer to all our thoughts, feelings, and personality; our innermost being.

This idea of the heart being the part of our bodies where our thoughts and feelings come from can be traced all the way back to Ancient Israel where it originated from. According to the Bible Project, the Ancient Israelites believed that the heart was not only a crucial organ inside a person’s body that they needed in order to survive, but also the place where all thoughts and feelings came from and the place where one stored knowledge and wisdom. They believed that both our thoughts and rational mind were found in the heart. This is why the Hebrew word levav not only means “heart” but also “mind.” The Israelites were not closed off to their emotions like us Americans. They expressed all types of emotions out in the open for all to see. The Old Testament is full of people expressing both great joy and sorrow. One example is when the Israelites cross through the parted Red Sea to escape Egypt where they had been enslaved for 400 years. Exodus chapter 15 describes the Isrealites singing and dancing with joy.

However, there are also moments in the Old Testament like Esther chapter 4 when Mordecai puts on clothes of mourning and walks around his entire city wailing when he learns that the king had ordered for all Jews to be killed in Prussia. Jacob, David, and many of the prophets exhibited similar behavior when they were faced with great sorrow. Even Jesus wept when watching Matha and Mary grieve over their brother Lazzarus’ death, ( John 11: 35). My point is, our emotions, even negative ones, aren’t a sign of weakness. They are a gift from God that enables us to connect with each other, the rest of his creation, and, most of all, himself. The Ancient Israelites were not only better than us at grieving and celebrating, but also were better at connecting with each other and God. Take King David for instance. Him and his friend Jonathan are closer and better at supporting each other and caring for each others’ hearts than most married couples and close family members. When Saul, Jonathan’s father, tries to kill David, Jonathan helps him escape and flee the country. Scripture describes them saying goodbye to each other “both of them… in tears as they embraced,” (1 Samuel 20: 41). A few chapters later, it says that, “Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God,” (1 Samuel 23: 16). Jonathan was risking everything to simply “encourage” David. If his father, who was king, had discovered what he was doing, he could have disowned him and even had him killed. However, Jonathan did it anyway because he cared for David and wanted to support him in his time of greatest anguish and need. We need our emotions for us not only to know the condition of our hearts, but also to be able to love others. When we suppress and ignore our emotions, our hearts become hard and we can no longer feel anything. We think that this hardness is a sign of strength but really it is a sign of weakness. Hardening your heart is easy. Trust me, I’ve done it. Letting your heart remain soft and tender; letting yourself feel pain and sorrow is much more difficult. Our emotions make us feel vulnerable; naked. They don’t let us hide and hold others at a distance.

God spoke to Israel through the prophet Ezekiel these words, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh,” (Ezekiel 36: 26 NIV). God is asking us to let Him do the same thing for us. He wants to soften our hearts and teach us to love. He will teach us how to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, (Romans 12: 15). He will teach us to live life to the fullest,” (John 10: 10). He will show us how to love him and others with reckless abandon if we will let him; if we will trust him with our hearts. The whole thing, even the broken, messy, imperfect parts. I am currently writing a book about the heart and making my own journey with God to soften my heart. The human heart is the most beautiful, complex part of God’s creation. In the book of Eclessiastes it says, “yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work for beginning to end,” (Ecclesiastes 3: 11 NLT). Finding your heart can be a long, painful journey, but it will lead us to great treasures of beauty and wisdom that nothing else can even come close to.

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