Reclaiming Your Heart

The modern concept of the decision-making process is that it is the rational exercise of weighing out our options and choosing the best one, and then engage our volition to act accordingly. And even though this might strike you as basically true – it is profoundly flawed in its understanding of how decisions are actually made. But because we’ve been so conditioned by modernity to believe that rational thought occurs in a dispassionate vacuum of cognitive assessment – we assume that our thinking is somehow capable of functioning apart from emotion . . . when in fact, our emotions are at the helm of every decision we make.

David Hume, a mid-18th-century philosopher, was one of the first intellectuals to push back on the Enlightenment’s perception of how rationality should be valued. For Hume had correctly recognized that not only do our passions control what things we choose to think about, but also how we choose to think about them. So no matter how rational we assume we’re being, the criterion on which our rationality relies is a presupposed framework our emotional predilections have already put in place. Which is what led Hume to believe that our authentic self could only be discovered by examining our desires.

So it’s no surprise that Hume would be a precursor of the post-modern existentialism that seems to pervade our current cultural ethos – a culture no longer interested in a rational explanation of how reality actually exists but rather insists upon perpetually pronouncing its own desired reality into existence, thereby redefining reality. So clearly, our desires are being placed front and center – but what do we desire most? Which is to ask – what desire is ultimately at work beneath all other desires? I would say our primal desire is to be known and loved – which goes directly to our sense of identity and value. In this way, every desire can be traced back to who we imagine ourselves to be.

But given that our desires often manifest themselves in recklessly self-destructive ways – like being trapped in a room full of distorted mirrors, our desires begin to reflect the inner sense of self we’d rather leave in abstraction. Because in our compulsive desire for possessions, pleasure, and power — we invariably end up worshiping these false gods of significance. So that in a diminishing return, we are left hollow and empty – no closer to being known and loved then when we started. This is what happens when we allow our passions to drag our hearts around – until we find ourselves broke down emotionally on the side of the road, longing for our true home.

And our heart’s desires do have a true home, a place where we are truly known and loved – in the infinite moment that is God’s presence. By design, we were made to desire God above all else, for he is the satisfaction of every longing of our hearts . . . and therefore, the function of every other desire is to bring us to him. But when our hearts hold another desire above him, moving us away from God, that desire becomes pointless and empty, leading us to disillusionment. Which is why we must reclaim our hearts from these false notions of satisfaction, and seek first God’s Kingdom . . . and allow every other desire to be satisfied in him (Matthew 6:33).

This is our heart’s true home . . .