The thoughts and ways of the heart....

Today, see if you can stretch your heart and expand your love so that it touches not only those to whom you can give it easily, but also those who need it so much.
~Daphine Rose Kingma

 

You have heard that it was said, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy."  But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
~Jesus in Matthew 5:43-44

 

Wealth and want equally harden the human heart.

Theodore Parker

 

All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast. Better a little with the fear of the LORD than great wealth with turmoil. Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred.

~Proverbs 15:15-17

 

 When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.

 ~Woodrow Wilson

 

When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty.

~ Jeremiah 15:16

 

There is lots of talk these days about the heart, it's the "new thing" in the human research and personal growth arenas.....and yet, God has been talking about the heart....both man's and God's heart for thousands of years! Now there is an entire website and non-profit research organization centered around the "brain in our heart"!!!! http://www.heartmath.org/  Actually I stumbled across this site last year looking for quotes to use in this journal. This past March I learned more about some of the amazing research that this organization has done concerning the physiological aspects of the heart and the "thinking" connection it has to our brains!

 

We all seem to recognize on some level that our hearts are truly part of our emotional thinking process, but for most of my life, I was taught that it was a figurative word used to signify the seat of our emotions. And yet, as I look through a LONG list of references to the heart in the Bible http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=heart&qs_version=31 I am amazed at the number of references to God's heart....and man's heart from a position of decision making, speaking and thought. And it occurs to me that the scientific research of the past 20 years has only proven what the Word of God has been revealing to us for these many long centuries, the TRUTH of God's wisdom, creation and our own likeness to Him as He created us in His image.

 

Taking the pure research information provided by the Heartmath Institute...... independent of the references and applications to evolution or religion or the various worldview perspectives of the writers and researchers.....we can begin to recognize the reality of the God's clear and straightforward motivation in communicating to us through the writers of the Bible......that we are "intricately and wonderfully made" and we can not ignore our hearts or our thoughts or  our souls or our spirits.....they are each real, and integrally connected whether or not we BELIEVE it! Our belief or disbelief does not change the facts, nor make it true or untrue. Science has once again proven what the Bible has said for thousands of years.

 

As I talk with people, I find that so many seem to be ignorant of the encouragement that God gives us in the Bible to do the same things that the Heartmath Institute is teaching people to do......choose to think and act in a compassionate, loving and caring manner.....and don't get consistently and overly angry, anxious and worried.....because our hearts tell our brains what to think, feel and act based on the consistent and regular state of our choices to think in either manner.....which are most of the times directed by the past experiences and memories that we have stored up in the brain cells of our hearts!!http://www.heartmath.org/research/our-heart-brain.html

 

Because of some of these very real past experiences and memories, many have come to a perspective that God is a heavy handed "rule maker", ready to slap our hands every time we get out of some arbitrary line and ultimately send us to eternal torture if we mess up one too many times.....and how many of those mess ups constitutes "one too many" is up for EXTREME debate....leaving everyone in a foggy fear of unknowable failure and seemingly unfair retribution......rather than experiencing the loving and graciously merciful forgiving God revealed in the Old and New Covenants.  Removing God from the picture all together or at least relegating Him to an impersonal force in the universe that can be manipulated through various disciplines, seems to provide some short-term sense of relief from this impending fear - based perspective in people who hold this perspective. Personally, I think that most of us have had this perspective at least at some point on our lives.....or.like myself, fall into it by subconsciously forgetting the truth that God has done everything possible and even "impossible" in order to demonstrate His great love for us and desire for us to know Him and love Him.....even telling us throughout the ages and demonstrating it through the very personal death and resurrection of Jesus....calling to our hearts to surrender to His great love for us.

 

And I begin to wonder why I am just now finding these scientific truths out....and how I can look at applying them to my own life in ways that bring me closer in my personal relationship with God and in my relationships with others. To follow the only "rules" that Jesus told us God has laid out for us.....to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and spirit and to love our neighbor as ourselves......and the only ones that bring us true joy on this journey.

 

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

~Proverbs 4:23

Extreme Dreams, LLC
Kathy Douglas
President
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Houston, TX 77070
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kathyd@extreme-dreams.net

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