October 09, 2009
Whole Heartedly
We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘I love you from the bottom of my heart.’ I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I get to the bottom of anything it means it’s all used up and the only thing remaining is a few dregs. Now if we considered love to be in the category of a first fruit, then we should love the Lord from the top of our hearts. But alas, Jesus is not satisfied with just the bottom or the top of our hearts. He says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…” ( Matt 22:37a ESV)
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Gail;
-----Now this is a fun play on words. I find it quite similar to Jesus play on, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Math 25:40) I experienced a gathering of brethren who wanted to make like Jesus meant you were actually giving Him food, drink, welcoming Him, clothing Him, medicating Him, and visiting Him in prison only when you were doing it to the most vulnerable and pitiful of His brethren. Evidently, by their selective behavior amongst one another, nobody else qualified. The preacher of that gathering had a special needs child of his own which served to legitimatize this misconception that only these least counted. But we know from Jesus’ very nature this idea is a bag of garbage. Everyone having turned to Him is precious and valuable to Him. Serving every one of them to even the least of them is to serve them all that way, from the most to the least, just like loving from the bottom of the heart is loving that started at the top of the heart and reached all the way to the bottom.
-----A manner of expression is only useful when the listener is willing to play by the contextual rules of the speaker. It irks me when a listener misconstrues a manner of speech that I have used for simply highlighting my point. People usually do this only to overlay the speaker’s points with their own. By abandoning the point being made and viewing an expression according to a different one, most manners of speech can certainly be construed to mean something quite different than what is meant by their user. But to do that is a breach of the rules of communication. The listener is first obligated to ponder the speaker’s expressions in light of the thought the speaker is delivering. This is the only way anyone can reach the best understanding of what is being presented. Once he has reached that understanding is the only time he is truly qualified to issue his own opinion or conclusions about the speaker’s points, or his arguments against them. So to fail to receive what the speaker means by his manners of speech, then to substitute your own meaning for it and reflect any criticism back toward the speaker on that basis is a really dirty trick akin to theft. All of the meaning trying to be delivered has been stolen right out of its words.
-----So when I hear, “...from the bottom of the heart...” I usually grant that the speaker is not desirous of giving only the dusty tailings at the bottom of an empty barrel unless he is speaking of something rather odious or, on its face, undeserving of his love, like a skunk on his dinner table. But loving his wife from the bottom of his heart may express an entirely different meaning. To be sure of his meaning, you may need to know a bit about his wife.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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