Heart of Gold / Heart of God

*Disclaimer: This is going to be one of my most random connections… but if you know me… you already expect this.*

This morning I was listening to music on my phone (on random, skipping to only upbeat songs because I was late to work), and Switchfoot's "Faust, Midas, and Myself" started playing. I know most if not all the words, but still some of it hit me pretty hard. "A heart that's made of gold can't really beat at all. / I wanted to wake up again… / without a touch of gold."

Backstory real quick: For those who haven't heard the song, here it is. If you don't want to listen, here's the short of it: The singer makes a deal with the devil and becomes Midas, then makes the realization that his life where he has "everything" is fake-- realizes that he has "one life left to lead" not "one life let to leave" (which is a hard-to-notice lyrical change at one point :) ).

Anyway, this image of idolatry really hit me: allowing something I desire to become my heart, to become the source of my life, the one thing that I think will make me happy… This morning I needed to hear that… Thank God for the providence of "shuffle songs!"

This leads (in a convoluted way) to another "Heart of Gold"… a very obscure one at that…
I am referring to the spaceship that is fitted with the "Infinite Improbability Drive" and is taken on a joy-ride by the main characters of the "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. Why, you may (should) ask, do I bring up something so random and off the wall? Well, there's a potency to this "Heart of Gold" that almost matches the next one I'll talk about.

This "S.S. Heart of Gold" is able to go anywhere, and do anything, instantaneously. Though the technology proposed is purposefully absurd (wonderfully purposefully absurd in my opinion), the ship is the most powerful thing in the five part trilogy (yes, I meant to say that). This ship can literally go anywhere instantaneously, turn a pair of missiles into a sperm whale and a bowl of tulips, and even produce an infinite number of typing monkeys who want to talk about their rendition of Hamlet (don't worry, I'm not as insane as Douglas Adams, all those were from the books).

However, as random and potent as the "Heart of Gold" is, let's look for a second at how it is used. Basically, it is randomly joy-ridden around the cosmos. The pilots have no purpose, the ship has no inherent purpose, and the "Heart of Gold" goes to the uttermost reaches of time and space without enhancing a single life, helping a single soul, or righting a single wrong. Why is this? Why is it abused, not used? I think there's a simple answer, and it goes back to the fact that it was stolen. It is a "heart" that has been taken over by other purposes than those it was meant for (however purposeless those purposes are…).

Now, for the last heart: and this one is good. This one is the heart of God. Tonight (meaning 5 hours ago), Trent McEntyre, the campus director of Crossroads (Campus Crusade) at Georgia Tech, talked to us about the heart of God. Now, there are a couple places where the "S.S. Heart of Gold" is comparable (contrastable) to the heart of God:
1) Power: God is all powerful, and, unlike the ship, is in complete control of that infinite power. While the spaceship might malfunction and show up as a shoe instead of an intergalactic transport, God knows exactly how to show up in our time of need, and exactly how to show up in any and every culture.
2) Presence: God is all present, and, unlike the ship, is not being joy-ridden. He is able and active everywhere in the world and not in a random "here and gone" type of way.

But, so much more, the difference comes in this: Unlike the others, the heart of God is actually Love (wow… that's obvious…). Love that died. Love for the entire world. Love that will allow this song to be sung in the Consummation (aka. in the end of time in Heaven): “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation…" (Revelation 5:9).

God has always loved the world and all therein, from creating it "good," to giving Abraham the first "missionary call" ("in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" Gen. 12:3, and similar in 18:18, 22:18, 26:4). This is the heart of God that we Christians need to show. We need it wherever we are, we need to cast off any ideas of ease or any prejudices that keep us from knowing God's love for every race, every tongue, every person we interact with. God's heart is not one for wealth, and it is not one that gives up on reality, it is one that desires to pump true life into every interaction we are in, and one that may send us to other places to circulate Christ's life-giving blood there.

A principle in Leviticus is the statement that "the life is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11), so what life is our "heart" putting in our "blood"?
How should we be practicing living by God's heart instead of our own?
Are we avoiding prayer, scripture, fellowship, evangelism, discipleship, worship, and/or doing our daily labors for God in some joy-ride through life?
Don't we realize that living fully for God, experiencing his heart, is the most amazing joy-ride of all???

Well, a few more question marks and a really short poem and I'll quit this ramble…

Do I desire something physical, mental, or emotional that I think I need?
Will I just joy-ride my heart around the universe?
Or am I really sold out on the heart of God?



Do I have a heart of gold,
Or the heart of God beating in me?
Concealed in my flesh:
What circulates my reality?

In what fount of life do I find hope,
For what rest do I desire?
The ultimate cold of lifeless gold,
Or life fueled by the Spirit's fire?