Protect the Warmth of Your Heart
Left to its own, all heat is always dissipating, becoming tepid and cold. Hearts too, follow the physics of nature in the spiritual atmosphere of the soul. Unless the fires of our love for God are tended faithfully, the heart grows tepid and cold. This certainly is why the Scriptures are constantly reminding the faithful, commanding the faithful actually, to “remember”. There is a spiritual amnesia that starts to retroactively forget the saving works of God. Like climbers on a ridge-line, losing our footing, beginning the fall to what we know will be our death on the rocks below when suddenly a companion grabs hold of us by the arm. An adrenaline rush of thanks and then laughter and joy as we peer over the edge from our rescued vantage point and rejoice in what didn’t happen and then, not five minutes later, adrenaline gone, our memory already beginning to fade of the peril from which we were rescued—soon—too soon we will again begin to be reckless with our footing. There is this thing called “drift”.
We drift. We are travelers who forget our peril and lose touch not only with the hand that rescued us but from the reality of our always-present need to be rescued. This is how people drift from the faith, “once delivered” (Jude 3). “No, my lord . . . but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD” said the spiritual fire-tender Hannah, to the spiritually dense Eli (I Samuel 1:15). So this Old Testament woman of faith and Mary in the New Testament, who “pondered and treasured” the words of YHWH (Luke 2:19, 51) are the mentors of all who would learn the art of keeping and protecting the warmth of a heart too prone to drift away from the embrace of God.
We need such guides and mentors, spiritual sherpas, who help us navigate the contours of fire-tending hearts toward God. We need them because fiery-passion for God dissipates quickly in the fading glow of a dying memory, an untended heart. Thankfulness, gratefulness, worship, awe, wonder, knowledge of grace and mercy received, awareness of the need for forgiveness are easily forgotten when the rescue of our souls retreats into the past, even if the past is just last week. Mystery demands thought.
How many young believers of every age have been lost to the assumptions that what was in the past is continuing in the present? How many have drifted from the warmth of fellowship with God made possible by the work of Christ?
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No Bible to today. “No problem.”
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No worship this week. “No problem” says the beginning-to-drift-soul.
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Indulging in a thought-life unworthy of a sinless Savior and King. “Not a big deal. I can handle it for a moment.”
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No fellowship with the faithful. “No need” says the enemy of our soul. “You don’t need them.” Even though the most basic prayer and thirty plus “one-another” passages underline for us that we do.
After all, even the Lord’s prayer doesn’t begin with “My Father, who art in heaven . . .” but with “Our Father, . . .” We are designed for community. We live and move and have greater being and unity with all things that matter only in and through a thriving community of other Christ-ones.
I once met a friend on a college campus; we conversed, said our goodbyes and each started to walk away in opposite directions. Suddenly, I remembered something I wanted to ask him. When I turned and began to speak, I was just as suddenly shocked by how far away we were from each other. The distance our two strides had taken us would now require that I shout my question. I wonder how often we slide imperceptibly away from Jesus, not because we are actively running away but because we are simply walking in a different direction than He is. Drift.
I fear that many a “deconstructed Christian” has just such a trajectory. They didn’t start out trying to leave the faith. They simply neglected to hold on to it. They allowed the world to define “faith” as something devoid of evidence—a blind leap in the dark, rather than how the Bible defines it as a trust in the sufficiency of the evidence and the character of a self-revealing God. We don’t believe in myths and legends (2 Peter 1:16, Luke 1:1-4). We follow the One who is the Truth itself.
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