A Divided Heart ©

Division is a terrible thing in most cases. In the birth of new life, as cells divide and multiply, progeny comes forth. Keeping your investments wisely divided into healthy categories can grow wealth. Dividing the yolk from the egg white can lead to a lovely meringue or reduce heart disease. But in most cases, division is destructive and far too often leads to death.

Just look how divided this country has become. Healthy differences of opinion and a civil (i.e., respectful) avenue for resolving those differences seems to have gone the way of the Dodo. Road rage incidents end in gunfire and death. A “woke” worldview criticizes, cancels and outright condemns anyone who dares to disagree. People who don’t march in lockstep with someone else’s perspective are doxed and in danger for their very lives. People fly off the handle at the merest perception of a slight – real or imagined – and they are somehow justified in behaving like narcissistic animals (an oxymoron as animals can’t be narcissists). Combine that narcissism with poor anger management, a lack of impulse control, and an over-inflated sense of self-righteousness, and the combo is deadly.

The rancor and repercussions of political, racial, economic, religious, class, education, gender, and age divisions, as well as those that crop up over climate change, meat by-products, and sports, are sadly becoming the characteristic that most defines America these days.

Don’t get me started on the centuries of division in the church over salvation (Arminian vs Calvinism), baptism (sprinkle or dunk), communion (intincture or individual sippy cups), service (go forth or stay here), marriage (hetero, homo, divorce), drums, dancing, drinking, and cards. By far and away, the vast majority of the things that divide the church are by and large NON-ESSENTIALS, yet we plant our denominational flags in the ground and aim our religious cannons at any who would confront our version of theology. Some theology needs confronting and how we do that must be guided by the Holy Spirit and Scripture, but this post is not about that journey.

When I look at division in the Bible, I am dismayed to discover the endless examples of division sown by deception (Satan in the Garden of Eden), disobedience (Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden), and deliberate sin (every king of Israel and Judah leading up to the Assyrian invasion and Babylonian exile). The division in and amongst ourselves today are the outward and painfully visible signs of the exact same causes and they break God’s heart.

But let’s look more closely at our own divided hearts, that which remains hidden from the world, perhaps, but not from God. Ours is not to judge the world: that is God’s job. We are not to hold up the Bible as some sort of window through which we evaluate others and find them wanting. WE are to hold the Bible up as a mirror in which we see Jesus and seek to be like him more and more each day. This is not about salvation by works, so please don’t go there. This IS about the actual investment we are asked to make in our relationship with him and our journey towards being like him.

We want to be in the world and in the kingdom. We want to surrender as long as it doesn’t cost too much. We desire to serve, as long as it fits our life choices, calendar, and preferred commitments. We want to pray but not too often, too loudly, or too long. We want God’s good promises and cry ‘foul’ when the consequences of self-deception, disobedience and/or deliberate sin materialize.

We are fiercely independent, self-sufficient servants of the Most High God. Read that sentence again. We say we believe in God, perhaps even love God, but we cannot be bothered to follow his command to be in community with other believers. Everyone “there” is a hypocrite. No, WE will worship him our own way on our own time rather than taking our broken selves to sharpen and be sharpened by other broken selves, as if church were a hotel we can check into occasionally rather than a hospital full of strugglers just like us. Jesus was pretty clear that we will be judged with the same measuring stick we applied to others.

We don’t really believe that what we believe is really real (Dr. Del Tackett, The Truth Project). We struggle and strain and strive when God tells us not to worry, to pray about everything with thanksgiving, and trust. We curse with the same mouths that sing praises to God. We give the finger to the person who cut us off on the freeway, speak invective against our social and political opposites, overtly or secretly body shame those who don’t fit our particular view of good-looking, smack our wives, abuse our children, take drugs and alcohol, steal, lie, gossip, commit adultery, look at porn, spend too much, covet what others have, and pray for God’s blessings upon us.

We want to be better believers, but we don’t want to work that hard. We seek wisdom but yell a blue streak when life helps us get some. We don’t take care of the temple that is God’s house, what we put into it physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We want others to know God, we just don’t want to be the ones to tell them. When storms come, we cling to the boat we think will save us rather than the Person who is in the boat with us. We want heaven on earth NOW and think the government is the savior who can legislate Utopia into existence, rather than enduring patiently now, and living with our future hope in view. We constantly lose sight of the character of who God is, the enduring quality of his love, the truth of his justice and judgment, the perseverance of his boundless mercy and grace, the sovereignty of his rule. Instead, we pant and fret and worry and whine and rage when the defecation hits the rotating oscillator and we stand there splattered and spluttering.

There is a reason the Bible tells us to REMEMBER. There is a reason we are told not to forget. There is a reason the life lessons of people in the Bible were preserved for us today. It all comes back to the character of God and whether or not we really believe what he says about himself is really true. Most of us don’t, not when the going gets tough… or inconvenient. We treat God like some sort of cosmological concierge who will come when we ring the bell and deliver us from whatever is vexing us at the time.

We live so far removed from the people and events of the Bible that we barely take them seriously, let alone use them to be transformed by renewing our mind (Romans 12:2) and gaining wisdom (James 3:13-18; Proverbs 2:6, 4:6-7, 11:2, 16:16; Eph 5:15-16). We can be equally lazy in remembering times in our own lives when we heard, saw, and experienced God’s intervention and intercession. And we will never know about the times he interceded and intercepted on our behalf to keep us from something worse, something not meant for us, something that would lead us into harm’s way. If it doesn’t’ go our way, well then, God must not love us, or be good, or sovereign, or any of his other irrefutable, immutable attributes. It is oh so easy to discount, disregard and disconnect from someone we feel mad at or hurt by.

These are the signs and symptoms of a divided heart. A divided heart is death to our journey as believers. A divided heart is death to relationships: just ask a couple whose affections have glanced elsewhere. A divided heart keeps us separated from God and all that he would have for us, both here on earth and in the life to come. Here are verses speaking to this bigger biblical theme of living divided:

You shall have no other gods before Me (Exod 20:3).

How long will you hesitate between two opinions? (1 Kings 18:21a).

Choose this day whom you would serve (Josh 24:15).

These people draw near to me with their mouths, honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me (Is 29:13).

You cannot serve two masters, for either you will hate the one and love the other (Matt 6:24).

A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8).

Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?

Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4).

Do not love the world nor the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15).

You are neither hot nor cold, so I spit you out of my mouth (Rev 3:15-16).

A divided heart, or the lack thereof, is a choice. It is a daily, sometimes moment-by-moment, choice to believe in who God says he is, what he says he will do, how much he says he loves us. It isn’t easy, but it’s our choice. Every. Single. Time.

If you, like me, have struggled with a divided heart, if you, like me are guilty of wanting what you want when you want it and how you want it, then take heart. God has shown and continues to show us that living with a divided heart prevents us from feeling the peace he promises. He’s not the one suffering here, though I believe he sorrows at our lack of faith and trust. But, he is always waiting to help us close up our divided hearts, to make them one with his. I also believe that we cannot do it without him. Each and every one of us has tried and failed. We must choose this day whom we will love and serve. We must confess our divided heart. We need to remember Whose we are. We can trust he is making all things new in us. Let us not live divided any longer. He is waiting.