In the midst of a cultural moment which seems to celebrate the immediate and remain content with the shallows, Scripture reminds us that our hearts are like “deep waters,” (Prov. 20:5). We intuitively crave a personal deepening and broadening of our hearts but we don’t know who to go to or where to look. A wise path would be to look up, look in, and look out. This is what it means to be deep-hearted.
Deep-hearted means looking up and knowing the heart of God. The richest and greatest blessing the gospel provides for is our genuine knowing of and relating to God. The Creator of all that we see around us is now Someone we know, speak to, and share our heart with. In Christ by faith, we now know God as our Father, Christ as our Savior, and the Spirit as our advocate and comforter. The word ‘know’ here is not being used simply as ‘knowing information about,’ but to know in the richest possible sense of the word- to know another’s story, personality, character, desires, and so forth. As theologian J.I. Packer beautifully said years ago in his classic work Knowing God, “A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about God.”
Deep-hearted is looking in and knowing your own heart. As we’ll see moving forward, theologians of the past have stated that an essential aspect of our Christian lives is not only knowing God but also knowing ourselves. Bernard of Clairvaux, who greatly influenced Calvin, said that when we know our own misery we’ll reach to God for mercy and be more likely to show mercy to our neighbor in their time of need. Thus, knowing our own heart is crucial in motivating us to look up to God and out towards our neighbors. Deep-heartedness will seek to know the various aspects of the heart- its intellectual, emotional, volitional aspects as well as its deep desires- along with how our heart has been shaped through our life history. As my friend Joe Novenson has said, we must learn to steward not only our gifts, but also our weaknesses and brokenness. To steward them we must know them.
Deep-hearted is knowing the heart of others around you. We often know people at a relatively superficial level. We know about what sports teams they scream for, if they have kids, what hobbies they may enjoy, but we rarely know how to pursue and engage their hearts in times of great joy or breaking sorrow. We remain ignorant and distant from what kinds of things drive them in their lives, experiences they’ve had, what they may fear or hope for. Biblical love calls for us not only to love and serve those around us, but to strive to know them intimately through curiosity and empathy.
Look up, look in, look out. Will you join me on this journey?
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