When My Heart Isn't Pure

getting back on the wagon

Photo by Chris Chow

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I've known people who struggle with addictions.

There is this thing called a wagon, and when you're struggling with an addiction, you're either on it or you're off it. On the wagon, there's lots of coffee. Probably cigarettes too (unless cigarette addiction is the thing you're trying to kick). There is all this sober talk, all this earnestness. I remember a guy—a friend of a friend—who would talk a lot about being clean and sober every time we saw him, and then one day he said to me, “I'm not clean and sober anymore, but...” and he sort of shrugged.

I remember feeling so sad about it. I wondered if a person could ever overcome an addiction like that. Always starting over from where they left off, never feeling like they're making any progress.

But I don't feel so sad about this anymore. I accept that this struggle is part of the human condition. Moreover, this emptiness—this failure—is a wonderful opportunity for a battle-weary person to experience grace.

I remember learning about the Islamic concept of the Greater and Lesser Jihad in a world religions class. The Lesser Jihad involves conquering nations and kingdoms with swords and guns and warfare, more or less forcing entire peoples to submit, while the Greater Jihad involves the conquering of one's own self.

It is as though conquering lands and kingdoms is a Friday night Bingo game compared to conquering the self.

And this would be true, if we didn't have the help of the Holy Spirit.

It is hard to find more beautiful words ever penned than the those of the Beatitudes; they are good and right, comforting, hopeful words. Particularly when you are at rock bottom, when life has chewed you up and spit you out, when you are experiencing injustice of some kind.

But there—right smack in the middle—are these words: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Purity is not a matter of bathing, nor does it have to do with a clean diet. You can subsist entirely on Dollar General food (see my post about that here) and still be pure in heart; conversely, you can have a totally clean, organic, locally sourced diet and have an impure heart.

Jesus said: “Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (Matthew 15: 17-19).

It's hard when you want to be pure—when you want to see God—and something rises up inside your heart that isn't so pure. Hatred, perhaps. Or a strong dislike. Judgment, bitterness, envy, unforgiveness, to name a few. We don't always recognize these as impurity at first, because some of us are experts at justifying ourselves. But if you are a person who seeks God, I am pretty sure that, sooner or later, God's Word is going to show you the sorry state of your own heart.

This is what happened to me recently, and when it happened, I realized that I had fallen off a wagon of my own. I think I would like to call my wagon The Wagon of Salubrious Thoughts. My wagon, like The Sobriety Wagon, has lots of coffee, though it doesn't have cigarettes. There are epiphanies, revelations, and inspirations a-plenty. There are edifying books, and lots of lists with good resolutions and intentions. When I'm on the wagon, I feel hopeful and full of faith.

When I fall off, I feel vulnerable to every dark thing.

Getting back on the wagon requires a bit of cognitive dissonance. I have to push past some loud thoughts: thoughts that I am justified in whatever besetting sin I am struggling with on the one hand, and thoughts of hopeless self-loathing on the other. I have to push these away and agree with God's still, small voice that calls me to repentance, to faith, and to the appropriation of His mercy.

I have to act against my inclinations in faith and, before my thoughts and feelings have even changed, still a bit bedraggled and dirty, I have to jump back into the wagon.

The amazing thing is how easily—how quickly—we can return by just setting our hearts and intentions in the right direction.

I recently got back on my Wagon of Salubrious Thoughts by praying a prayer like this:

I agree with You. I don't agree with these thoughts I'm having. With your help, I commit to living a life of victory and obedience in this area.

It's amazing that, while God doesn't condone our sin, He is sympathetic toward our humanity, our weakness. He is more sympathetic than our human neighbors. As writers, we know how important it is to create “sympathetic characters” (meaning characters that the reader sympathizes with) but in real life, we do not always elicit the sympathy of others.

But to God, anyone who comes to Him for help is a sympathetic character. Jesus is our “sympathetic high priest--” a man who, while having experienced humanity and all its weaknesses, did not give into sin.

If you are discouraged by some bad habit or some besetting sin, some unseen battle or struggle, I hope and pray that you will, with God's help, get back on the wagon in 2024.

And never give up, no matter how many times you fall off.