Season 2, Ep 14: Unbreak My Heart

Welcome to Season 2!

This Season is all about the Discipleship Dilemma. As we seek to become more like Jesus, we need to not only know Him but also ourselves. However, exploring our own hearts is not currently a prominent aspect of modern Christianity. Exploring how our stories (our historical relationships and experiences) impact our spiritual formation today is not normally a part of our lives.

The habit of uncovering the hidden ideas in our hearts is called “Heartview.”  This introduction to Season 2 lays out why Heartview is essential for the Christian life, how it differs and complements Worldview, and how it can lead to healing and wholeness for wounded souls.  Brian references the Creation Picture visual aid again, and you can find it on the Soil and Roots website.

TRANSCRIPTION

An Introduction to Heartview

Welcome to the Soil and Roots podcast: digging beneath the surface to uncover the hidden ideas that shape and define us. I’m Brian Fisher.

This is Episode 14: Unbreak My Heart

Introduction to Season 2

Welcome to Season 2! I’m so glad you’ve come along on this journey of spiritual formation with the team and me at Soil and Roots. 

Today, we’re turning a corner in our exploration of New Testament discipleship.  We’re going to leave the introductory nature of Season 1 and dig more into how to uncover the unconscious ideas in the human heart. 

Throughout the first season, we discovered some key things about our hearts, the modern church, and our culture.

1.  We’re suffering from what Dallas Willard called “The Great Omission.”  Though we hear about the importance of making disciples, we struggle to actually make them.  We see the evidence of the lack of discipleship all over culture, though, at an individual level, we tend to feel it if we quiet ourselves enough. It’s a sense of disconnection from God, others, and ourselves.  We wonder if there’s more to the Christian life than what we’re experiencing.  The promises and perspectives of the Bible, and particularly the New Testament, don’t really seem to characterize our lives. 

We looked at this from several angles. We looked at one model suggesting there are six stages in our discipleship journey, though most of us experience only the first three.  We are made aware of God, we embrace Him and learn more about Him and Christianity, and we begin to lead productive Christian lives of service.  However, we have little context or opportunity to experience the later stages: the Journey Inward, the Journey Outward, and the life of love.

In some ways, Season 2 will begin to explore this Stage 4 – the Journey Inward.  How do we begin to get a sense of what’s really going on in our hearts?

2.  Last Season, we explored the fact that there is a layer to the human heart that sits beneath our conscious minds.  There are various ways to describe this bedrock of our hearts, but we’ve explored it as the realm of the ideas that govern us – the often-hidden assumptions, principles, and conclusions that power who we are.  If we want to become more like Jesus, we should recognize that Jesus seemed to operate at that level quite frequently.  He was constantly probing and discerning the hearts of those around Him. 

So, discipleship is when we apprentice with Jesus for the purpose of becoming more like Him, and we become more like Him as the ideas of darkness in our hearts are formed more into ideas of light.

3.  However, we are born into an era that faces Three Primary Problems.  We have Forgotten the Kingdom (Jesus’ primary message), we face a Discipleship Dilemma, and many of us live in the Formation Gap (we don’t have access to communities specifically designed to form our character). 

Season 1 is an Introduction to Discipleship.  Season 3 will be all about the Formation Gap, and Season 4 will focus on the Forgotten Kingdom. 

This season, Season 2, is all about The Discipleship Dilemma.  To become more like Jesus, we learn His heart and learn our own hearts. 

However, exploring the hidden ideas in our hearts, how they were formed, and the relationships and experiences in our pasts that formed them is not normally a part of the modern Christian ecosystem. 

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of ideas that form our hearts, and we’ve only touched on a few of them. It takes a while to learn to recognize ideas in our hearts, the hearts of others, and the culture, but it’s an adventure worth taking.

We’ve explored an idea of the Gospel, a few ideas of Anthropology (what it means to be human), an idea of expectation, and some ideas of identity, value, and purpose.

I frequently have conversations with people who love Jesus and place a high value on the Bible, their church, and Christianity.  Sometimes, though, the person will confess that the so-called “voices in their heads” don’t always match their stated beliefs.  They know that Jesus loves them; they know they are a child of God.  Yet their thought patterns often reveal voices of condemnation, worthlessness, arrogance, or terrible insecurity.

We know we shouldn’t be anxious, but we’re anxious anyway.  We know we’re supposed to forgive, though we struggle with anger and rage, even toward people no longer in our lives.  This is the disconnection I’m talking about. Our hearts often embrace ideas that don’t align with our beliefs. 

This season, we’re going to explore and practice a spiritual habit I introduced last season called “Heartview.” It’s a made-up word, though the habit itself is certainly not made up.  It’s simply taking to heart what the Bible shares about how we discern our own hearts and the hearts of those around us, so that we may grow to become more like Jesus.

God has wired human beings with Eight Heart Indicators. They are our thoughts, emotions, health, actions, relationships, words, and how we use time and money.  This season consists of twelve episodes, and we’re going to take a look at each indicator as we move through the season. 

And we’re going to discover that, if we’re patient and curious, we can cooperate with God and a trusted friend to explore our eight indicators and begin to get a pretty good grasp of the ideas and desires in our hearts. 

Before we dig in, let me just give you one word of encouragement.  The Soil and Roots podcast is a primary outreach of Soil and Roots, the organization.  Our team is committed to helping cultivate deep discipleship in small communities we call Greenhouses.  Greenhouses explore how to become more like Jesus through some rhythms and intentional dialogue that have been around for centuries. 

We’ve been doing this long enough to know that the Discipleship Dilemma tends to get the least attention. Exploring the Great Omission and dark and light ideas is pretty fun.  Digging into the Formation Gap and the Forgotten Kingdom generates some amazing discussion and cultural study.  But, for some reason, we tend to gloss over the Discipleship Dilemma.  When it comes to exploring our own hearts, thought patterns, relationships, budgets, and emotional reactions, it can get a little difficult, and some of us are tempted to avoid it. 

Here’s my encouragement: Season 2 gets very practical, and that’s good. So, dig into it.  Don’t rush through it. These eight indicators are powerful and helpful, but won’t be of much use to our spiritual journeys if we don’t take them seriously.    

We have plenty of time and space in the Soil and Roots journey to explore big ideas, cultural and church trends, and the grand narrative of the Bible.  Season 2 is not really about those things – it’s about how our hearts reveal their desires and ideas in the everyday, mundane aspects of life.  If you begin practicing Heartview with a friend, I can pretty much promise you’ll experience a leap forward in your spiritual journey.  It isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. 

Big Chief!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into this concept of Heartview.

You might have guessed that I love to read.  It’s my favorite hobby.  I’m an introvert, and our boys are now young adults, so a great day for me is lots of quiet time with my books.    

And I frequently read in one of my favorite spots.  I have a special reading chair, and my chair has a name. His name is Big Chief.  Big Chief and I spend a lot of time together. On any given day, Big Chief is surrounded by a pile of books that I’m working through.  

But if my wife were to take a video of me reading in Big Chief and share it with you, you would probably think I’m a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

As you might imagine, Big Chief is a big chair. It’s actually more of a round loveseat. It’s got a huge cushion, but that means getting in and out of Big Chief is a bit of an ordeal.  You can’t just stand up – you have to shimmy your way off the cushion.  So, when you sit in it, you want to stay there for a while.

I’m a high-maintenance reader. I need five things when I read. I need my books, my water bottle, a Post-it notepad, a pen, and a highlighter.  When I read, I mean business, and I take notes, highlight passages, and mark things to come back to later. I re-read certain paragraphs and bookmark certain pages.  It’s a pretty involved process. 

Here’s the problem – I get so excited to read that most days I don’t land in Big Chief with all five items.  Half the time, I forget my water bottle, so I have to get up and go find it.  Then I’ll sit back down and realize I have my pen, but I don’t have my highlighter.  So, then I have to get back up and find the highlighter.  Many times, my Post-it notes fall down behind Big Chief’s cushion, so then I need to get up, pull off the cushion, and find my Post-it notes. 

Most days, it takes me three to four up-and-down cycles to actually get settled into Big Chief so I can start reading.  This happens all the time. I look like a dog circling its territory to claim it. It’s exhausting.

When I finally do get settled into Big Chief, I read almost nothing but nonfiction, and most of the books deal with theology, worldview, cultural studies, and anthropology.  But over the past few years, I’ve studied quite a few books from authors who focus on education, counseling, therapy, and trauma.

These two camps don’t always get along.  Some theologians look down their noses at Christian counselors.  Doctrine is the solution for all ills – so someone dealing with a difficult emotional problem just needs to read more of their Bible, pray more, and memorize a few passages of Scripture.  I once heard a pastor give a sermon on depression.  He did a great job describing what depression is and how it impacts Christians, but his solution to getting out of depression was simply “more Jesus.”  I’m not sure what he meant by that – I don’t think he did either.

And sometimes, professional counselors view theologians and academicians as unsympathetic, dogmatic, and out of touch.  A therapist concerned with wounded hearts is naturally inclined to a person’s story. They are highly empathetic. They voluntarily enter the brokenness of their clients.  That’s not to say they don’t care about theology, but a counselor may prioritize relationship and presence more than doctrine. 

When it comes to understanding spiritual and heart formation today, I think the edge goes to the counselor, the therapist, and maybe someone like an attuned educator.  As we’ve discussed, most Christian leaders today are primarily teachers – and we need that teaching.  But they’re not typically fellow travelers.  Their role is to instruct, not to engage. Your pastor probably doesn’t do life with you.  But an empathetic friend or counselor will do just that.

Empathy, compassion, and being surrounded by allies (trusted friends who have our backs) are the qualities we embrace when we tackle Heartview. We’ll be exploring the biblical basis for these indicators. We also need to explore our own stories, our own struggles, hurts, and harms, as we uncover our hidden ideas and desires with kindness and curiosity.  

Ideas in the Air, Ideas in the Soil

Think about it this way.  We’ve noted there are two major groups of Ideas. Ideas in our Soil and Ideas in the Air.  Let’s talk about Ideas in the Air for a moment. 

God’s two books (the Bible and Creation) promote and proclaim Ideas of Light. These ideas lead to human flourishing.  Though both books also teach us about Ideas of Darkness. God is gracious enough not only to invite us to embrace His life-giving ideas, but also to leave us ignorant of the ideas that kill us.  So, the Bible is filled with examples of Ideas of Darkness, and nature also teaches us about them.  These two books invite us to ideas of light but educate us about ideas of darkness for our good. 

The Seven Mountains of Culture work differently. Culture is an amalgamation of ideas of light and dark, and culture may promote and proclaim all sorts of ideas at any given time.  Some cultures tend towards Ideas of Light, and others towards Ideas of Darkness.  At the moment, Western culture seems to favor certain Ideas of Darkness, particularly dark Core Ideas of identity, anthropology, value, power, purpose, and love.

Ideas in the cosmos and in the culture are what we call Ideas in the Air. It’s basically the universe of all available ideas.

Some of these ideas seep into our soils over time.  And our hearts embrace them.  We call these Ideas in the Soil.  

Okay, so culture today tends to be the primary driver of Ideas in the Air, not necessarily Creation and the Bible. The reason is that many people don’t pay much attention to either of God’s books.

But what is the primary driver of Ideas in our Soils?

Our individual stories.  Remember, we talked about how our family of origin and early experiences are, by far, the most formative catalysts of our core ideas about identity, anthropology, values, power, purpose, and love.

When we begin to practice Heartview, we see our stories show up in our thoughts, emotions, health, behaviors, relationships, words, and in our use of time and money. 

This is why Heartview takes kindness and courage. For example, when we begin to explore why we think the way we think, this can’t be done simply by looking at cultural influences or even genetics.  Our thought patterns are highly influenced by our stories- particularly our earliest years.  

Heartview and Worldview

This is also why we need to be careful not to confuse Heartview with Worldview.

A Christian worldview rightly claims that there is an objective reality, and it’s found in the ideas of the Kingdom of Light. It educates Christians to defend those realities against attacks from the Kingdom of Darkness, generally in the Seven Mountains of culture.  Worldview training is amazing and indispensable.

However, there’s a layer underneath worldview that is worth exploring – what I call Heartview.  Why?  Because oftentimes our hearts don’t actually embrace the worldviews we espouse. Our hearts don’t necessarily align with what our minds think we believe. 

What do I mean?  Ravi Zacharias.  If you don’t know that name, just Google him, but not for too long.  He was widely considered one of the foremost, brilliant Christian apologists of the last 50 years.  He taught a cogent, cohesive, biblically accurate Christian worldview.  Yet towards the end of his life and afterward, it became uncomfortably clear his heart had embraced ideas of darkness that were in direct contradiction to the worldview he taught. His heart was not in sync with his head. He had been engaging in a damaging and destructive lifestyle that betrayed what he taught.

Our tendency is to look at that one example and claim it’s an isolated instance. But it isn’t.  I could list off a dozen other Christian leaders, all of whom promoted a Christian set of beliefs or worldview, who have now either left the faith or disqualified themselves from ministry due to some sin.

Every one of us has ideas in our hearts that contradict Ideas of Light, and every one of us has ideas that betray our Christian worldview.  Each one of us is fragmented; there is a disconnect between our hearts and our heads. 

The surface answer as to why that disconnect exists is “sin.”  Of course, that’s the reason, though we normally stop our exploration with that surface answer.  We sin when our hearts desire the ideas of the kingdom of darkness.  We obey when our hearts desire the ideas of the kingdom of light.

Heartview gives us the amazing opportunity to dig into our hearts to understand why we desire what we do.  A person who wants to grow more like Jesus must have a Christian worldview – but we must also practice Heartview so we can uncover the mysteries of why our hearts often desire ideas of darkness. 

Listen carefully to A.W. Tozer:

“That our idea of God corresponds as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God.^[1]”

In other words, there is often a big difference between our stated beliefs and the ideas and desires in our hearts.  And most of us don’t know that difference exists.  We just do life. 

Heartview is a hard, often uncomfortable process, and that’s why most Christians don’t do it.  It requires kindness and courage, though it may also require humility, or the release of shame, or going back to places in our story we’d rather not visit. 

Most of us go about life without questioning or evaluating why we do what we do – we just do it.  If we do engage in Heartview, it’s typically because of some major crisis that forces us out of complacency and causes us to question our thought patterns, emotions, health, behaviors, relationships, words, time, and money.  A divorce or relationship breakup, a job loss, a health condition, or a death.  

As we’ll begin to explore next episode, Heartview is difficult, but it’s not rocket science.  It’s basically taking the time to pause and think about why we show the indicators we do.  Why do I think the way I do?  What is driving these feelings? Why did I just act the way I did?  Where do I spend my time?  What do my spending habits tell me about my desires?

When we answer these types of questions with God and trusted friends, we then determine whether the ideas that drive our indicators are from the Kingdom of Darkness or the Kingdom of Light.  Here is where instruction and Worldview are so important – we need to know the difference between the two. 

When we identify ideas of darkness in our hearts, what do we do then?  How do we cooperate with God and others to progressively transform darkness into light?  In other words, how do we grow to desire the things of God rather than the things of darkness?

Here’s the simple three-step practice of Heartview.

1. Uncover. We evaluate our Indicators to uncover the hidden ideas in our hearts.

2. Determine. Are the ideas light or dark?

3. Immerse. We immerse ourselves in cultures intentionally designed to transform dark ideas into light.

This last step is what Christian counselors, therapists, and mature educators do every day.  And, by the way, it’s the foundation of addiction recovery programs like AA or Celebrate Recovery.  These folks understand the role that time, habit, intimacy, community, and instruction play in the healing and restoration of human hearts.  Our hearts become unbroken through experiencing a culture of healthy spiritual formation.

Remember, we are creatures of desire.  Both kingdoms know that, and both kingdoms want our hearts. The Kingdom of Light wants our love because it is good for us.  When we desire the Kingdom of Light and its King, we find beauty, we find justice, we find purpose, community, and we find love. We find life. We flourish. 

When we desire the Kingdom of Darkness and its powers, we find ego, we find narcissism, we find cruelty, confusion, and chaos.  We find death.  We die.

Both kingdoms are passionately pursuing our hearts because both know that’s the root of who we are.   

There’s a good chance this is all pretty new to you.  We’re using different terms (and some made-up words) to describe discipleship and growth, and we’re looking at Christianity in ways that aren’t all that familiar to us.  Hang in there with me.  As we go deep into Heartview this season, you’ll begin to see just how wonderful it is and how, as we grow to be formed into the likeness of Jesus, He transforms not only our hearts but the hearts of those around us.

Thanks for listening! If you like the podcast, share the podcast! The Soil and Roots community is growing because of you.  If you’d like to join our email list, donate, or find some more information on Greenhouses, check out the website at soilandroots.org or touch base with us at fish@soilandroots.org.  We’ll see you next time. 

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^[1] Willard, D. (2002). Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (p. 100). NavPress.