Your mind, a glorious gift

Your thoughts don’t yet know that you have no intention of obliterating them—well, most of them; there are some thoughts and emotions you no longer want or need.  The truth is, you’re not becoming irrational.  God doesn’t want you to forget you have a brain or for you to fail to use it well.  No, no.  Instead, you’re transforming your mind into the glorious gift it was meant to be (Romans 12.2); you’re simply learning to hold your thoughts a safe distance from your heart.

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How even the best thoughts will block you from your heart

Jesus taught that the fullness of God, what he called the Kingdom, is not only near you, but within you—near as your next breath, close as the beating of your heart. But the gate to the sacred realm within is guarded by your thoughts—even the loftiest, most beautiful thoughts of God. The baser thoughts—ugly, crude, and seductive—stand as sentinels, turning you from the divine path. But even the best of them will block the way. Like all living things, a thought or emotion possesses a resilient will to survive and therefore doesn’t like being ignored; and it will stubbornly resist you should it suspect that you intend to give it up entirely.

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Into the heart

Knowing that the true you resides in your heart will save you from a lot of headache, I assure you. Knowing this is the beginning of gaining mastery over your thoughts and emotions. Your brain may crown your body, but your belly holds it together, and there’s considerable distance between the two. Maintaining that distance will save you over and over again. So when the monkeys in your mind try to dominate you, practice drawing them down from their lofty heights and into your heart where Christ waits to tame them.

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Life wasn't poured into you through your brain

What the Bible calls the heart is what we call the gut. More specifically, the spiritual athletes of our history—the praying saints—point us to the navel when they speak of the heart. This is a strange but helpful image for you to keep in mind. When you were in your mother’s womb, everything you needed for life came to you through your navel. Life wasn’t poured into you through your brain, but through your belly. So, spiritually, you draw your life from God from here—your navel, the true center of your body, what the Bible calls your heart.

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What is the heart?

In the Bible and in our spiritual tradition, the heart is not the muscle that pumps blood through our bodies, nor is it the seat of our emotions. No, the heart is the center of our beings, the place within us that belongs entirely to God. It is that point where the image of God resides within us, where God’s Name is indelibly written. It can be covered up, hidden, neglected, but never destroyed. Because it is the seat of God within us it is the organ of true spiritual perception, the faculty of highest knowledge, the place of direct experience.

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