How do we understand our complex hearts?

At one moment . . .

• We worship God in sincerity.
• We preach Christ with passion.
• We counsel others with love.

While in the next moment . . .

• We fall into self-pity.
• We are surprised by wayward desires.
• We react in anger to a slight provocation.

So, how do we understand our complex and divided hearts?

It may look different in each of us, but this complexity is always present. Every Christian carries the ongoing identity of both saint and sinner. Martin Luther accurately described the Christian experience as “Simul Justus Et Peccator (simultaneously just and sinner).”¹ God’s grace makes us new creations (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17), and yet this does not mean—and our experience confirms—that our struggle with sin is erased when we come to Jesus.

We must grasp our identity as saints who face deep suffering and struggle with remaining sin, because one of our enemy’s most common strategies is to isolate us. He wants us to believe that we are unique, that our trials are more severe, and that our desires ultimately define us.

We must not be “ignorant of his designs” (cf. 2 Cor. 2:11), because if he succeeds in isolating us or convincing us that our situation is unique, we will hide from God and others while our sorrows grow louder and sinful desires fester, threatening to take over our lives.

This is why I have been encouraged by the divided heart of one of my Christian heroes—Jim Elliot, the missionary martyr to the Aucas in Ecuador. Elliot was a man consumed with the cause of Jesus Christ. He is well known for saying, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”² Until his final days, he was so zealous for the cause of Jesus that he prayed, “God, send me soon to the Aucas.”³  The Aucas would eventually kill Elliot and his four friends.

And yet, in his last journal entry before he gave his life for the cause of Christ, he also wrote the following...

“December 31, 1955

A month of temptation. Satan and the flesh have been on me hard on the dreadful old level of breasts and bodies. How God holds my soul in life and permits one with such wretchedness to continue in his service I cannot tell. Oh, it has been hard. . . .  I have been very low inside me struggling and casting myself hourly on Christ for help. . .”⁴

We may not understand or identify with the particular nuances of Elliot’s struggles, but we cannot dismiss their existence and intensity. 

Does this mean Elliot is a fraud? Does it mean that all his passion for Jesus Christ and his love for these lost Indians was not genuine?

I think we should find this fuller and nuanced picture of Elliot even more encouraging than the stereotypical Christian hero version that is often emphasized in the church. Be encouraged, Elliot was in the battle, too! His struggle with corruption persisted until his final days. He had to “hourly cast himself on Christ”!

You and I cannot identify with a man who only desires God and who daily walks in perfect selfless love; however, we can identify with a man who sincerely loves Jesus and simultaneously struggles with divided desires that can only be conquered by Jesus’ mercy and grace.⁵

This battle is within each of us as followers of Jesus Christ. 

So, young mom, don’t be surprised when shortly after being inspired by that Christ-focused podcast on mothering, you also desire to spend more time on Instagram than with your kids.

None of us should be surprised when we find in our hearts a desire for both Jesus and ourselves. In coming to Jesus, you are at the same time “hidden in Christ” and called to “put to death what is earthly in you” (cf. Col. 3:3, 5).

What  posture can we take? 

1. Be encouraged. You are not alone in this fight, and you do not have to hide. God and self, holiness and sin, grace and guilt are in each one of us. You can move toward God and others in all your complexity, seeking help as you navigate your complex heart.
2. Be watchful. Understanding our complexity does not lead to complacency. As those who have been changed by Jesus we are to “seek those things that are above . . . and put to death what is earthly in us (Col. 3:1, 5).”  As we see our weakness and sin, we are to heed the words of Jesus, “watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matt. 26:14).”
3. Be forgiven, dependent, and strengthened. The struggle of our divided hearts can be wearying. This is why we need to “hourly cast ourselves” upon the one who proclaimed, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28, HCSB).” 

As believers living this side of heaven and redemption, we are to walk in confession, repentance, and faith in the cleansing blood of Christ. In this way, we experience the power of the Holy Spirit to grow in love and holiness.

Footnotes

1. Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians (1531/5), in Luther’s Works, American Edition, eds. Jaroslav Pelikan, Helmut T. Lehmann, and  Christopher Boyd Brown (St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress, 1955), 12:232, 235. ↩︎
2. Jim Elliot, The Journal of Jim Elliot, ed. Elisabeth Elliot (Grand Rapids, MI: Revel. 1978), 174. ↩︎
3. Ibid, 475 ↩︎
4. Ibid., 475 with fuller version at https://medium.com/belover/jim-elliots-last-journal-entry-ec8d40d36c5f. I disagree with the conclusions of this blogger, but he does provide the fuller version of Jim Elliot’s final journal entry. ↩︎
5. We don't have the space here to look at all the examples of this in Scripture, but we should know that this same complexity is present in every person in Scripture too—from Adam to Abraham to David, Peter, and Paul with the obvious exclusion of Jesus Christ. ↩︎

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