Whole-Hearted

We will, for this Page, approach our theme from an angle.  Everyone is wholehearted about something even if it is wholeheartedness about not being wholehearted.  (I have followed the lives and thoughts of some persons who see themselves as superior animals, living for their share of decades, dying, and ending life like productive animals – perhaps living at high level in nature believing in endings and silence.  There appear to be many millions of men and women who live in that context of belief in unbelief.)  A person may be wholehearted about being a hypocrite, criminal, addict, or committed to some other context negative to self and/or society.  We generally presume, when we use the word wholehearted that it is in the context of virtue, values, good purpose to beneficial outcome – if the wholehearted holds out for elevated purpose.  To be wholehearted opens the individual to disappointment, risk, failure, error, sacrifice, danger, perhaps death.  It also offers possibility for success, reward, improvement, solutions, leadership, motivation, satisfaction and a sense of victory beyond nature.  Here are variations of factors yielding up information and experiences evaluated along a continuum from least acceptable to most acceptable life, or situation, or whatever is being sought or measured. To be a holistic person requires some wholeheartedness.

When C. S. Lewis was confronted with the charge that he was too public and passionate about his Christian beliefs and public statements his response was in essence: If Christianity is true, as I believe it is, one can hardly be less than enthusiastic and involved in it.  (Well said.)  During periods in the history of ancient Israel, a people called to represent God’s redemptive plan for all peoples, biblical authors reported from God: They have not wholly followed me.  They may have followed, but not wholly.  If not wholly they were open to drift, to error, to loss in effectiveness for purpose.  The partiality to normalcy led to impotence for purpose and they could not understand why God permitted them to go through some trials that even more carnal peoples did not suffer.  (Habakkuk 1:4)  This was part of the despair of Elijah under the Juniper tree when after a great victory of the mass of prophets of Baal, he ran from Jezebel. The implication here is that wholeheartedness may come and go – and it does.  The understanding explains much of David’s life in the stories we have of him.  He stood up well when he was wholehearted with God in the way he thought and acted.  He failed miserably when he fell back to himself.  Jesus noted the wholeheartedness of John the Baptist.  Jesus would not show his wholeheartedness in the way John did (in dress, diet, and desert wandering), but he verified John the Baptist and avoided competition between the two of them.  The disciples of both Jesus and John would have been competitive without the moderation of their leaders.  Jesus used the matter with the people and the disciples of both venues in ministry.  (Luke 7)

Part of the reason for refreshing, revival, reformation, renaissance in anything of importance in belief and conduct is the inability of persons to maintain the level of commitment needed to move forward in the better life, character and performance of which we are capable and puts us firmly in the army of the Lord.  We go on furlough from time to time and find excuses to function.  This does not mean that the good people go bad (although they may), but they move away from the conflict.  God is not in conflict with mankind, but mankind can, in much of life, be in some conflict with God.  That conflict may be simply omission or evasion.  We likely commit more sin in our omissions that in our deliberate thought and action.  This feature of neutrality takes away from the dynamics of our faith, and we simply float through life.  We are called to get into the boat and paddle.  We need to realize that sometimes we are in the boat with the paddle across our knees.  If it is so for me, I have lost my wholeheartedness for God’s purpose with mankind.  I have seen the genuine wholeheartedness of many missionaries and ministers, male and female, to doubt what I write here about the point.  I have seen it in young Christians who permit a languishing church body to dilute their vigor for ministry and God.  There is a settling-in that ought to take place in us so that we are not running to and fro, even in Christian work, when a more orderly, more sacrificial, more spiritual life can be found that gives strength to the mission of Christ for the redemptive gospel.