Matter of the Heart

We know how crucial the heart is to the life of the body. When someone’s heart arrests, rescue workers don’t slap the head and yell to the brain, “Make the heart work!” They coax the heart to begin beating again by doing what it does, knowing that if they stop, the fallen person will certainly die.

Maybe this is why we give the heart so many unrelated responsibilities. It is, for the most part, very dependable and absolutely crucial to survival. We attribute our powers of reason and intellect to the brain, but when it comes to love, passion—even envy, anger, and hatred—these we assign to the amazing little pump that beats beneath our ribs.

It has always been this way. Even the oldest texts of Scripture, which predate almost any other printed record, command us to love God with everything we’ve got, including our heart.

We all seem to agree that our deepest feelings come from a place that is incapable of producing thoughts. There is no gray matter, no brain tissue in the chambers of the heart.

The fact that we believe the love we have for people originates somewhere within the folds of “the old ticker” is no more evident than the time of year when heart-shaped, Valentine decorations abound. Take a peek inside the average greeting card tailored for Valentines Day and it’s hard to miss the significance we place on the heart as the seat of emotion.

Even though we have simplified the symbol, choosing a symmetrical, non-chambered, unplumbed cartoon to represent the real thing, it is pretty obvious the human heart is the address for our best—and worst—intentions and affections.

This is why that British mother was so troubled as to what to do with a lump of forty-year-old tissue sitting in a glass jar. It represented the part of the little boy that would have loved her, had he lived. That is why the cruelest loss makes us feel broken-hearted.

The intensity with which we love and are loved is what makes us the most like our Creator. We are loved by God with an intensity we truly cannot comprehend this side of heaven. And we’ve been created with the same ability; to love deeply. The heart is the home of everything we cherish, which is why we are instructed to love God first and foremost with every fiber of our being, because from that love, all other loves will flow.