Everything You Do Flows From Your Heart

Your current reality is a direct result of your perception of yourself in your heart. “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he,” Solomon said. You are exactly the kind of person you believe you are in your heart.

That doesn’t mean that you don’t want to change or become a better person, but it reveals that the life you are currently living comes from your heart’s view of yourself. Your actions and behavior are the fruit of your heart, as Solomon writes, “For everything you do flows from it.”

Through my work with orphans I have noticed that giving a starving child food may help him stay alive, but it will not save him from a life of poverty. When a person’s image of himself in his heart is entrenched in poverty, his actions and experiences align themselves with that image. Poverty becomes his reality. Unless poverty is uprooted from the heart, or the way he perceives himself, the poverty will continue to bring about lifelong struggles and discomfort.

Your heart is so central to your current reality that even your health is established there. “A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body,” Solomon writes, adding, “a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” The wise king was on to something that science is now discovering. Research has linked a joyful and peaceful heart to a healthier body and immune system, right down to the cellular level.

Continued tomorrow…

Adapted from Unraveling Love’s Mystery, David Youngren (2012, chapter 6)