March 9

The Head and the Heart (Day 2)

 

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.  ––1 Peter 1:8

Shocking victories are remembered.

Think about Muhammad Ali defeating the overwhelmingly favored Sonny Liston for the 1964 heavyweight boxing title, and the rest is, well, history. Think about the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980 when the United States defeated the former Soviet Union in Olympic ice hockey, or the 2026 Winter Olympics when we won again for the first time in 46 years. In the UFC world, think about Holly Holm’s stunning victory over previously unbeaten Ronda Rousey—not only the biggest upset in UFC history but one of the biggest in sports history.

For theater people: Who in their right minds would have thought an off-Broadway production that draws heavily from hip-hop and casts nonwhite actors as America’s founding fathers would become the phenomenon we know simply as Hamilton. Few saw that coming, including me.

You get the picture. Pure shock and awe. Why? Because people made assumptions.

Whether or not we admit it, we all make assumptions about whether certain things about us or around us will change. We “handicap” our chances. We let the limiting voices versus the optimistic voices sway our thinking. We let the clouds make us forget there is sunshine behind them. We let the past permanently shape our thinking about the future.

This human habit to make and act on assumptions leaks into and impacts our spiritual lives. Some of us can’t envision any other experience with God than what we already know or have known. So our unlimited God becomes a closed system. Or perhaps we’ve seen God move mightily in one area of our lives, but somehow His desire or power is restricted in other areas.

So we stop praying and trusting for breakthroughs. The saddest thing about this is that as men of faith, we believe that powerful shifts or victories in our identity, circumstances, health, events, fortunes, emotions, or spiritual lives can happen, but deep down is an undercurrent of very real pessimism, ambivalence, fear, or doubt that is operating but is unexpressed and unidentified.

In our minds, we have made assumptions about God and how He wants to work. Our lives in God begin to reflect our assumptions about God—wrong ones. The result? Our heads and assumptions defeat our hearts and potential new experiences.

It’s called going through the motions, and Jesus takes it personally: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”^[1]

Fortunately, our assumptions about God don’t limit Him in any way, but they do limit us when it comes to winning the battle to become secure, mature, and complete in His love. In fact, God wants His love to produce monumental upsets and conquer the things that are defeating our fullest experience of Him. He wants our living in His acceptance to blow open the spiritual floodgates. Think of God’s love as the knockout punch that sends the big fears in your life falling to the canvas, incapacitated and unable to rise. If you’re a football fan, imagine God’s love as the key block that springs your life into regular breakaway touchdowns versus tackles for loss.

Think of your life being an upset victory. Because that’s exactly what it is—you being plucked from the jaws of defeat and set upon the solid rock of Jesus’ love and security. Let your heart receive that message.

 

Lord, my heart gets hardened in this tough world—soften it with Your love and hope today.

[1] Matthew 15:8