This past week at school we had the amazing honor of having Dr. Marva J. Dawn with us at Bryan. She addressed us in two chapel services, lectured in multiple classes and hosted two Q&A sessions (one for campus leaders and one for worship council). I had the privilege of sitting in on 5 of her speaking engagements. Had I the choice, I would have followed her around all day to listen to her in every lecture.
In the two Q&A sessions that I attended, one thing she discussed was correcting our use and interpretation of the word "heart". In today's society, heart is used as a symbolism of emotions, feelings, love, etc. As Dr. Dawn pointed out, this is not at what heart is a symbol for in the Bible. Scripture uses other body parts to express our emotions: bowels and kidneys. Heart is always referring to the will of the human. As I ponder about this, so many thoughts rush to my head as various portions of scripture finally make sense. Instances of 'hardened hearts' is a hardening of the human will. "Change of heart" is a change in one's own will. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." "Trust in the Lord with all your heart." I just have so many thoughts on this idea that I do not even know where to start!
I had so many directions I wanted to take this blog, but as the days have droned on of me struggling with how to semi-thoughtfully put this together, my direction focused. "Trust in the LORD with all you heart; and lean not on your own understanding." Prov. 3:5 This verse is ingrained in my memory forever. Partially due to hearing the song that quotes this (which if I remember correctly is from Patch the Pirate. Oh the memories!) but largely due to the fact that Mom had us girls memorize Prov 3:5-7 when we were younger. Once I thought of this verse as "Trust in the LORD with all your [WILL]; and lean not on your own understanding." The idea of total surrender of the will to God made so much sense. Yes, God wants our emotions, our love, our attention, but above all he wants our will, our driving force, our main function (when you think about it, the beating heart of a human does seem to share more similarities with human will than will human emotions).
Now comes the great debate... dun dun dun! Calvinism vs. Free Will. Do I think you can make a Scripture based argument for both? Why yes I do! (I think God did that on purpose. He tells us in the bible that there are many things about Him that man will not be able to understand. I think this is one of them) I have read books, sat in on lectures and enjoyed a debate or two discussing both of these views. Here is how I can see both coming into play. Yes, I do believe that we humans have Free Will. Ultimately, God is Sovereign over all but he allows us to make our own choices so we can realize our dependence on Him. What God wants is for us to surrender our will, our hearts, to Him. He wants us to give Him our all. He is waiting to hear each believer say to God, "Lord, you gave me this free will and now I surrender it to you. Take complete control of my heart!" I'm not trying to spark a debate over Free Will and Calvinism, most of you know that I think far too much time is spent debating this issue instead of just focusing on the fact that we are commanded by Jesus to share the Gospel... but ANYWAY what I am trying to do is show how these two views can come together at the one point of surrendering the will to God. I feel that Calvinists focus so much on the fact that God is Sovereign that they never stop and examine their own lives on how their free will has taken over in areas and that it needs to be surrendered. I think those who believe in Free Will spend so much time focusing on the fact that they have a free will and they diminish God's Sovereignty in their lives. By surrendering our will, we are surrendering to the Sovereignty of God.
This may seem so basic of a concept... but let's face it, how many of us are really practicing it? We are all stubborn with God yet we think "Well, I love Him! He has my heart! I'm so awesome." No, you are a stupid, stubborn, self-absorbed Christian! Don't worry, I am one too. It's okay we can get through this together.
I really encourage all of you to go through your Bible and any time you find the word 'heart' just try re-reading the word 'will' instead just to grasp ahold of what God might be trying to say there. It has been a rather eye-opening experience for me.
Come on, tell me you don't love the '80s choice :-P
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