A Pure Heart
Image: Christa Jewett, Saltwater Studies
“And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” Deuteronomy 8:2 (NKJV)
Drifting along the ocean’s surface, I spotted a familiar shape on the seafloor below: a heart urchin skeleton. As I carefully reached down to grab it, God used it to remind me how His Creation offers wonderful illustrations of His tale of love for mankind. Heart urchins are a species of marine animal that can be found hiding in the sediment of shallow, coastal ocean waters. The lesser-known cousins of sea urchins, sea stars and sand dollars, their name is inspired by their vaguely heart-shaped bodies. Once a heart urchin dies, their skeleton, also known as a test, is left behind and can be a treasured find for beachgoers and marine collectors. In an area where I frequently dive, it is not uncommon to find heart urchin tests nestled in between the rubble of the rocky seafloor.
This time, however, the heart urchin was still in the process of decay. Portions of the animal’s internal organs remained inside its skeleton as a dark, foul slurry that poured from it when I picked it up. For specimens like this, the decaying organic material must be removed to prevent them from producing a nasty smell. To clean it, I shook the skeleton, turning it up and down until the water flowing through it became clear. In doing so, the Holy Spirit used this process to reveal the stark similarities between the cleansing of the heart urchin and the refining process that God uses to purify our hearts.
In the Scriptures God emphasizes to us the importance of maintaining a pure heart. While it is necessary to maintain a right relationship with God (Matthew 5:8), a pure heart is also necessary to live righteously. This is why the Bible exhorts us to guard our hearts. In Proverbs 4:23, we are told: “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” Jesus Christ echoed this sentiment when speaking to the Pharisees. He told them, “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man…” (Matthew 15:18-20a, NKJV). If our heart is corrupt, it becomes a source of internal decay, just like the heart urchin. This moral and spiritual decay will spread like cancer to all areas of our lives revealing itself in our thoughts, our words, and our actions, destroying our relationships with others and ultimately disrupting our fellowship with God. It is a foul picture, but one that is vivid and accurate.
Since consequences of a corrupted heart are so dramatic, God will go to great lengths to remove the putrid and offensive sin causing the corruption. His process? Trials and difficulties; two things that we often shun and avoid as much as possible. Just as radical surgery is often necessary to remove harmful tumors, God’s spiritual surgery is necessary to remove the cancer of sin from our hearts. In Deuteronomy 8:2, Moses reminded the Israelites that God orchestrated their forty-year trial in the desert to prepare their hearts to enter the Promised Land. Similarly, God uses trials as a “shaking” to remove the rotten filth from our spiritual hearts, to purify them, so that we can have a right relationship with Him. Rather than viewing our difficulties as an indication of God’s displeasure or anger towards us, they are a display of His love and His great desire to have an intimate relationship with us. He loves us so much that He cannot bear to have anything stand between Him and His children. As the Apostle Paul writes: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, NKJV). How great is God’s love for us!