Heart Trouble

A Word from Canon Hicks in the November 5, 2017 Adventurer

The book of Hebrews tells us that one of the marks of Christian maturity is the ability to discern good from evil. Many people would say that this is an increasingly hard thing to do in our day and age. Often times, accompanying this thought is a kind of nostalgia, a longing for earlier times when the culture out there was more morally grounded. While I don’t question that culture has shifted and that our modern age is riddled with more, not less, overt moral ambiguity, I wonder whether the author of Hebrews wouldn’t have us go a little deeper, into the human heart.

If I’m honest, I find that a lot of the energy I spend on pointing out the moral problems out there end up being smokescreens for not taking adequate time to come clean about the moral ambiguity that sits between my shoulders, right at the center of me. The living and active word of God is always pressing us to be perpetually honest that (as some have said) the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. Properly discerning good from evil begins with placing my morally ambiguous heart into the open light of God’s revelation, being honest that in every good deed and every wise act is a mixture of sin, selfishness, and idolatry. Powerfully, it is that kind of heart – the humble heart – that God takes, God grows, and God uses (Psalm 51:17).

I hope that the Advent is ever and always a place where we can be real about our hearts, before God and before one another. For it is in that posture, with knees bent and eyes up, where we are able to see our Savior, Jesus Christ, the hope of the world.

– Zac