God tells us to look for Him wholeheartedly. Jeremiah 29:13-14b (NLT) says “If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord.
There is something about wholehearted living that allows us to find God. The problem is when we sin we are filled with shame and we try to hide from God, just like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when they committed the first sin. Our wholeheartedness is compromised because we try to hide behind so many things in our shame. We only want to reveal parts of our heart, only parts of our true self. When we do, we give up some intimacy with God.
Jesus died for our sins and allows us to appear before God as righteous and worthy. But we still live as though we are not worthy of God's love and we cover up the shameful parts of us pretending we have no sin. The problem is, even as believers we miss out on the blessings of wholehearted living when we try to hide our authentic selves from God and other people.
In her book, The Gifts of Insecurity, Shame Researcher, Brene' Brown, comes up with a list of do's and don'ts of people who live wholeheartedly. She says the people who live wholeheartedly Do:
- have a sense of their own worth (I, {Bill} believe we get this from our saving relationship with Jesus),
- have a rhythm of rest in their life (like a Sabbath rest),
- make time to play,
- trust,
- have faith,
- have some intuition,
- have hope,
- have authenticity,
- have love,
- have a sense of belonging,
- have joy,
- have gratitude,
- have creativity.
The Don't List for wholehearted "livers" includes:
- perfectionism,
- numbing or
- self-escaping or
- self-medicating or
- addicting behaviors,
- working to exhaustion,
- self-sufficiency (I can do this all by myself, I don't need anyone),
- being cool,
- fitting in,
- being judgmental,
- live with a sense of scarcity (as opposed to plenty).
Brene' Brown said when she first discovered these truths in her research she says, "'I remember at one point I was actually sitting there with tears in my eyes and my hand across my mouth, like someone had just delivered bad news.' And, in fact, it was bad news. I thought I'd find that wholehearted people were just like me and doing all the same things I was doing: working hard, following the rules, doing it until I got it right, always trying to know myself better, raising my kids exactly by the books…After studying tough topics like shame for a decade, I truly believed that I deserved confirmation that I was 'living right.' But here's the tough lesson that I learned that day (and every day since): How much we know and understand ourselves is critically important, but there is something that is even more essential to living a wholehearted life: loving ourselves."
Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself. If you can't love your authentic wholehearted self, you can't obey the command of Jesus to "Love one another, as I have loved you." He also said, "If you love me, you will obey my commands."
We have to love God with our whole heart (mind, soul, strength). But we can't do that if we are still hiding behind those things on the don't list. Let's embrace the truths of the list of do's.
My prayer for myself and you is: "Lord, teach us to live a wholehearted life so we can find You!"
