Written In Your Heart

Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Proverbs 3:3

What is love? Or how does one love?

Solomon does not explain to us in this verse what love is -or at least he does not spell it out for us. There is no obvious boundary to show us what is love and what is not love.

Suppose there was a child who had questions about what love is or what faithfulness is. Suppose he was not able to find much of an education and was left without any clear understanding of love or faithfulness.

How could such a child be told to write these words on his heart? How could he be told to bind them around his neck? If he were writing about physics or biology he might have some difficulty. And if you identify with something you know nothing about, is it just an empty symbol?

Solomon's intent is to emphasize the way a person chooses to love and the extent to which they choose to be faithful.

His command is to never let love and faithfulness leave you. His command is that you bind them around your neck, and write them in the most concealed place of your heart.

Solomon's command draws attention to the fact that as human beings we tend to pursue love and faithfulness one day (or at least the appearance of it) and then we ignore or avoid love and faithfulness the next day.

How rare it is to find a person whose love is one thing. How rare it is to find a person whose faithfulness is always faithfulness.

In this way, Solomon refuses to define in words what love is and what faithfulness is. In refusing to define love and faithfulness, Solomon defines love and faithfulness exactly.

The love Solomon calls love is not something you wear at parties and put on the shelf when you get home. The faithfulness Solomon calls faithfulness is always with you.

And this explains perfectly what love and faithfulness are.

Let us return to our example of the child with little education who wonders how to follow the command, who wishes to write love and faithfulness in the tablet of his heart.

The truth is children are not at a disadvantage when it comes to love and faithfulness. The uneducated are at no disadvantage either. Jesus tells us very directly that God has hidden His good things from the wise and learned and revealed them to infants. This was always God's plan.

However long a person spends in school, his education is not powerful enough to write love in the tablet of his heart. However old a person grows, his understanding is not enough to give him faithfulness.

Love and faithfulness are two things people decide to write in the hidden places of their hearts. If a person does not make this choice (or the person chooses not to choose to make this choice), they will simply have no understanding of love or faithfulness.

If love and faithfulness are two things that must be chosen, if they are two things that do not depend on one's position, worldly events, fortune or history, then there is simply obstacle God has not removed. This is the moment for choosing something that needn't depend on any external condition.

So do not delay, dear reader, in binding yourself to the behavior God has directed you to practice. Write it in the inmost places of heart. Do not let it escape.

A Quieted Soul

Psalm 131
A Song of Ascents, of David.

O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;
Nor do I involve myself in great matters,
Or in things too difficult for me.
Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests against his mother,
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
From this time forth and forever.

David associates a proud heart and haughty eyes with getting involved in great matters or things "too difficult for me". Knowledge of "great matters" puffs up the brain -as the apostle warns- but love builds up. David addresses God saying, 'Lord, this is not the facade I carry around to show others, this is who I am inside.'

How often we are tempted as Christians to try and understand everything, particularly politics. David was himself the King of his nation, a head of state. It must have been highly tempting for him to try and find assurance in policy arrangements, alliances, and involving himself in great matters and things too difficult for him.

World conflict can seem so great that a person can overlook the conflict within his own heart. And this is not difficult to do.

The quieted and composed soul of David is like the quiet and composed child who rests against his mother. Such a child has learned to understand that although the food does not come from his or her mother directly, their mother has prepared it in her love and such a child can rest in peace with their mother.

How easy it is to foster an unweaned soul, to think that unless God intervenes in a dramatically obvious way that He has little care or concern for His children.

David closes his Psalm calling on Israel to trust in the Lord in the most immediate moment and to trust in the Lord eternally without interruption. The ways of those who think upon great matters or things too difficult arrive at conclusions once they have tried to take all things into account, but no human being understands all things ... and the requirement to understand "all things" comes with a terrible delay. When such a person pretends he has arrived at such a conclusion he always looks back with unsteady thoughts -asking if he thought it through correctly. At the first sign of trouble he abandons everything.

The trust of the weaned child is immediate, and it does not protest at the first sign of conflict. It is deep, it is continuous, and it is full of peace. How excellent to have the soul of a weaned child.

O Israel, hope in the LORD
From this time forth and forever.