Sharing Resources to Help You Grow Personally, Professionally & Financially

Sometimes it helps to get a little dose of encouragement—along with a good cup of coffee!—to start the day.

Hopefully, the message below will help you get off to a good start for the week. Please feel free to forward the newsletter on to others who you think would benefit from the content. Today we discuss "heart."

Heart

All right, fair warning this week’s Monday Morning Motivation is going to go down a bit more spiritual/faith-based path. If you’re not into such things, you can drop off now, as I don’t want to step on any toes.

Still with me? Great! Because while it’s a bit more personal this week, it’s a topic that I feel strongly about and something that I’ve been thinking about/meditating about for a LONG TIME!

• What does it mean when someone asks, “What’s in your heart?”

As an engineer, I’ve always made it a point to say that I don’t pay attention to the heart—I live in the rational part of life that’s governed by the head. And yet, this question of “What’s in your heart?” has been nagging at me as I work on developing my relationship with Christ from one of “head” to one of “heart.” However, with no reference/definition of “heart,” I’ve been struggling.

Last week a thought hit me that FINALLY allowed me to put the concept in context:

• Heart is about the ability to give and receive God’s love.

There are two key things that occurred to me related to the above. First, is the concept of God’s love. It’s not a feeling. Rather:

• Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is about an action and not a feeling. That helped me to comprehend, that what’s in your heart is about what you do and NOT what you feel. HOWEVER…

The second part of the epiphany had to do with the DESIRE to “give and receive” this love. When I read the above verses, they speak to me about an ideal state of being—a state that I would very much like to get to in my personal life. They speak to me about the feeling I want to have in knowing that I love others and others love me in this manner.

When I put these two concepts together, it “clicked” for me about what heart means. Heart is about your inner core being and living life in a manner that allows you to connect with God and others in a manner that leads to relationships built around love.

And while I may NOT be right, it is particularly fascinating that when the topic of love comes up, it is always depicted with a heart (think of Valentine’s Day).

That brings us to this week’s question:

• What’s in your heart?

Thanks for sharing a bit of your time with me this Monday morning.  

Have a great week!

Blog post from this past week:

Monday Morning Motivation - Pervasive