Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast.

Episode 59. When My Head Rant Turns Into A Heart Chant (God is greater than my heart)

Hello human.

I start today with an unexpected personal revelation. This is the first time I had something on my heart to share, something that I had scribbled notes about, but could not recall if I had already shared it. So I went back looking for it, through previous episodes. I couldn’t find it.

This is what open water feels like.  When I look forward I see the thin blue horizon of my witness. When I look back I see the same thin blue line. Because God goes before me, because God encompasses me.

I am lost in God’s sea. At His mercy.  It is so beautiful to not know where I am but to be so divinely assured about who I am with. To feel the long, strong strokes of His divine oars parting the water in front of me. My wisdom water.

David spoke in reverence to God in Psalm 77:19

19 Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.

I have lost my footprints in this witness journey. Because it is a watery path that is constantly changing toward where He wants me to go. When I look back on BUOY it is not as if I have permanently charted the path, but I have left spiritual buoys along the way. Buoys that stay afloat because of His nature, His voice, His word.

I don’t track much in the way of my podcast download activity but I can see when downloads spike… and I know that spikes may mean that someone has listened to a few BUOYS in a short period of time. And I say a little prayer for that person, “to sail on human. Keep seeking.” It gives me such peace to envision that humanon the journey. Following the watery path God has created.

If Our Hearts Condemns Us

In a strange way, this all makes sense with my witness today. I am talking about what goes on in my head, what I call a head rant. A head rant that, if let loose to run, turns into a heart chant. Emotion included. It’s not from God. But typically turned toward God.

Thanks for joining me.

The apostle John captures this in his third letter.

He says in 1 John 3:19-20:

1 John 3:19-20

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

 

John defines “belonging to the truth” in the scriptures leading up to verses 19-20. He talks about works, not words. Serving, not speaking. It goes like this.

1 John 3:11-18

11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

 

So, following Jesus is doing what He did. Laying down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 

This stops the human head rant turned heart chant. He says loving others is how we set our heart at rest IN HIS PRESENCE.

The Closer God Draws Us to Him

And what begins in verse 19, circles back to the human struggle with sin vs spirit in verse 20. Here, the focus is on conviction of sin. The believer will be convicted when he or she does something wrong. Why? God lives in us through the Holy Spirit. When we sin, the Spirit convicts us of the separation from living in His presence.

The closer God draws us to Him, the more sensitive we are to ways we are causing separation. That’s what sin is to me. Separation from my Creator.

The amazing grace of it all is that the Holy Spirit is on it 24/7 to convict us, to alert us, to prompt us to go the way of loving others. Sin goes in the opposite direction.

Let’s look closer at John 3: 20. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

It is thought by many commentators that the word “hearts” is referring to our conscience in this scripture. Our moral compass for what is right and wrong. Biblically, that moral compass is based on God’s Word. But in the secular context, the conscience is fallible, and its standard moldable.

Many think it is the Holy Spirit, but it is not. The Holy Spirit, in contrast, is always in perfect harmony with God.

God has led me to this distinction between conscience and the Holy Spirit because head rants are a familiar street for me.

Again. Doing what Jesus did stops the human head rant turned heart chant. He says loving others is how we set our heart at rest IN HIS PRESENCE.

And here’s another definition: The Greek word for “condemns” is kataginosko from katá = against and ginosko = know, which literally means to know against (to know something against one) and then to find fault with, to blame, to condemn (to determine or judge to be utterly wrong or guilty). Kataginosko is used only 3 times in Scripture.

“Condemns” is in the present tense, meaning we are always doing it. Perhaps this sounds familiar to you. It does to me. I have a sensitive conscience. My conscience rants on me continually.

But I think it is easy to give myself a spiritual pass by thinking temptation is out of my control, that my free will to choose God is always predisposed by my human grip on life and that I constantly feel that grip slipping. Slipping away from God.

But what God tells us is that we always have the choice to follow, that when we choose Him, He will always be there to lead. 100% of the time I know I have the power to turn to God, to trust, to allow His inworking of divine persuasion, like I am walking on a frozen lake. And I fall in, and I can see Him above the surface. But I keep going, swimming in the watery dark, frantically searching for oxygen in a watery world that thrives without it. But only because God created it that way. He is sovereign over it. But that’s the part we don’t get about living without God. We can’t swim under water indefinitely. We are not created to do that.

But, I scroll past Him as if I cannot learn anything new from my God today.

I choose to step into the middle of what I want to do as a human. I submerge myself in my head rant.

It is my sin nature, but for me, a more actionable way to think of it is “earthly pursuits with no heavenly merit.” Consider that maybe earthly pursuits require none of the fruit of the spirit to engage, contribute nothing to my witness, turn a blind eye, a deaf ear to God’s voice, and render myself mute to worship and praise.

But that’s actually not true. (thanks by the way for engaging in this rant). Everything we do requires our resources, regardless of where we draw them from. It is possible to use our spiritual gift for earthly pursuits, minus the motivation of the Holy Spirit.

An earthly life powered by the image God created us in, but eternally compromised without the spiritual engine, the redemption of our soul.

Greater Than Our Heart, God Is

My own conscience is fallible, but God is incapable of falling.

The devil fell from heaven.

Humanity fell from a position of purity.

I fall short of the “fullness of my faith”

God’s omniscience provides divine footing for my soul. It serves as solid ground for my continued assurance that the God that holds my salvation—our salvation—continually redeems our mind, our intent, our human migration toward self-rule.

God’s omniscience is sovereign over our conscience. My conscience is part of the Fall. It houses my sinful choices without a plan for what to do with them. The Holy Spirit is God’s divinity that spiritually matures my conscience and my life decisions. The Holy Spirit convicts the moral fabric of my being for His glory. God has a plan for every sinful choice I make. Repentance. Redemption. Return to loving others.

Martin Luther is a German theologian, professor, pastor, and church reformer. Luther’s teaching, and that of the reformation, is often summarized in three “solas.” Sola gratia, sola fide and sola scriptura which means — by faith alone, by grace alone and by scripture alone.

Luther said “Conscience is one drop; the reconciled God is a sea of comfort.”

When Our Conscience Condemns Us, God’s Omniscience Enfolds Us

Of course, I am drawn to the idea that my God of reconciliation is my sea of comfort. Thank you Martin Luther. I am on that journey. So are you, human.

When our conscience condemns us, God’s omniscience enfolds us in His mercy. He knows our way toward that thin blue line, our spiritual horizon. My Creator is greater than my heart.

And one more time. Doing what Jesus did stops the human head rant turned heart chant. He says loving others is how we set our heart at rest IN HIS PRESENCE.

Hebrews 4:16

16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Well, this head rant is over for now. Time to swim, human. Let’s set our hearts at rest in His presence.