Every Monday we’ll post something to do with personal purity. Hope it helps.
Your heart and mind sometimes disagree; your fate will depend on whose advice you follow.”
-Eugene Nathaniel Butler
My heart never was a very good guide.
It feels deeply, sure. But when it comes to genuinely loving my wife, sons, friends, or clients, my mind gives me an accurate picture of what’s in their best interests, more than my heart ever could. My heart wants everyone happy; my mind wants everyone getting what’s best for them. Sometimes the two go together, but when they don’t, which is often, then I’ve got to let my mind judge what the loving thing to do really is.
For some reason this struck me yesterday when I went sneaking out to see a movie, which is one of my favorite afternoon indulgences on days off. While waiting for the show I stopped at the concession stand, considered the chemically-laden treats on display, and weighed the options: Eat what’s good for me, or what’s pleasurable to me?
As you know, snack bars don’t offer too many items from the “Good for Me” category, so if I wanted something healthy, then a bottle of water was as good as it got. And while standing in line it became unusually clear that even though I love myself (as Jesus said I do when He commanded to love your neighbor as yourself) I still can choose, and even find great pleasure in, things that I know aren’t in my best interest.
OK, pause there. If I love myself, shouldn’t it be a no-brainer to go for the water over the popcorn, hotdogs or ice cream? Don’t I, who supposedly loves himself, thereby care about my health, my physique, my arteries? Why, then, is there any conflict going on in me over what to gobble down?
Because the Pleasure Principle often clashes with love. The Pleasure Principle says “What feels good is right,” and the heart is quite susceptible to that message. Real love says, in contrast, “What’s right has little to do with what’s pleasurable”, a message more readily accepted by the mind.
So if I love emotionally, it comes from the heart. If I love effectively, it’s dictated more by rational thought than feeling. Deep feeling is no doubt present, but it’s an experience to be felt more than a source of guidance.
Good parenting is an even better example of this. I want my sons happy, and love it when they’re enjoying life. I’m also painfully aware that they’d enjoy it more if it could be lived without school, disciplines, responsibilities and sacrifices. But could I honestly say I loved them if I accommodated their pleasure at the expense of their maturity? Maybe they’d like me more if I did, and we’d all be happy in a gooey kind of way. But I wouldn’t have loved them. I’d only have enjoyed the flakey pleasure of making them happy at their own expense.
Ditto for my clients. They come to me in good faith expecting me to give them honest feedback and counsel. My heart often wants to say what will make them feel better – “It’s not really your fault”, “Do what feels best”, “You’re wonderful just as you are” – but my mind knows that useful counseling helps them not to be happy, but to be better. So I counsel from the mind rather than the heart, and I know they, just like my sons, really wouldn’t have it any other way.
So pleasure is often mistaken for love. (Case in point: How often have we said “I love you” when what we really meant was “I find deep pleasure in your arms?”) Likewise I may choose what’s pleasurable today, loving myself yet still going with what feels good over what is in fact good, and shortchanging myself in the process. To love properly, we’ve got to rely more on our mental assessment of what’s right in God’s sight than our desires, because hard experience and common sense have proven that what will bring me pleasure is often contrary to what will bring me benefit.
No wonder God requires we love Him with our minds, as well as our heart, soul and strength! (Matthew 22:37) I can love in an affectionate, “feelings-oriented” way by expressing lovely thoughts and swimming in lovely feelings while still indulging sensual pleasures that harm me and all the people I say I love. Or I can show my love by exercising a sound mind, directing my actions towards the bottled-water of what’s constructive versus the junk food of what’s pleasurable but counter-productive.
“Be renewed in the spirit of your mind”, Paul advised. (Ephesians 4:23) And from that base of a mind renewed, leading a heart aflame with agape, I can love in ways that feel good often, seem good usually, and promote good always. There’s much to be said for a good hearted man, but let’s give the good minded man his due as well, because in the end, he may have more to tell us about love than we’ve given him credit for.
Comments
Add Comment