God's Word reminds us over and over that we should love God, not only with all of our mind and strength, but also with all of our heart. There is a reason for that. When our heart gets behind us in something, we are sure to be victorious.
We do lots of things in a perfunctory way--and granted, for survival's sake, some things pretty much have to be done that way. If we stopped to throw everything we are into brushing our teeth and tying our shoes we would be out of energy before we got to the things that deserved that kind of energy and focus. Yes, we must dress and drive and make appointments and change the sheets, and to do these mindlessly is probably not only permissible but appropriate; hopefully we can multitask at least well enough to do these kinds of things with just a smidgen of our brain and just enough heart to make the task palatable enough to continue to do it on a routine basis. (People who decide not to do these things because they don't enjoy them are the kinds of people most of us would label ''slobs".... So today I am not promoting full-scale heart-throwing after every menial task, and I hope you are not considering throwing scriptures back at me about "doing everything heartily as unto the Lord." Okay, maybe we should find pleasure in doing the menial somehow simply because we are given the blessing of breathing another day to do another menial task, but personally being able to do some tasks mindlessly allows me some much needed time to think more about the things that do really matter.
But what I want to talk about today has more to do with praying to live out our lives' calling with something more than a perfunctory attitude-- praying to love what we are given to do in a way that influences the part of our mind we call "the heart." I know the importance of a heart that knows what it means to be thrilled, a heart-consciousness that realizes right in the middle of doing a thing I need to do that lo! I am having something very closely akin to ...FUN! And rightly so. Having fun is for so much more than having fun. Choosing deliberately to clothe ourselves in all those Christian characteristics that we read about in Colossians is crucial if we are to waylay the gravity of sloth and worldliness. (Sloth because without heart for a job, it soon grows so wearisome that we are tempted to do it halfheartedly and then finally not at all. And worldliness because when our hearts are not engaged in anything holy, they get restless to be engaged in just about anything that will produce a thrill.) There is no denying that we were not put here primarily for fun, or Jesus would not have used the picture of heading off to die when He told us to "take up our crosses and follow Him."
But there are many Christian duties that, even though our sighs might indicate differently, we know good and well don't require anything CLOSE to dying. They are the woof and warp , the everyday staples of productive Christian living. We do them all right, but often we do them as Shakespeare described the young boy: "creeping like snail unwillingly to school." * What if we could somehow learn to think of these tasks as fun? What if we could learn to throw our hearts behind them and not just our wills? What if what we ought to do become the very things we want to do? It can happen. Our "oughters" can be one and the same with our "wanters." For a long time I watched it happen in others, and finally, after much praying about it, I am beginning to see it happening in me. Take Psalm 37:4 as God's literal promise to you.
What I am suggesting today is this: As you go down your prayer list, rather than just praying for their health and safety or wisdom in making decisions, pray that God will give to those you love a heart for the tasks He would have them do. Pray that they will learn to love what God calls them to do rather than tolerate it with a sigh. I'm going to be praying this for all of you. Would you please do the same for me?
"DELIGHT YOURSELF IN THE LORD, AND HE WILL GIVE YOU THE DESIRES OF YOUR HEART." PSALM 37:4
*William Shakespeare, As You Like It (Act II, Scene VII)
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