January 18

Blessed are the Pure in Heart

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Matthew 5:8

                        When my son was a baby, my wife and I joked with each other that he saw angels.  He would be lying on the bed with us and his eyes would be darting around as he smiled and laughed, seemingly following something that I could not see as it danced around our ceiling.  I don’t know if our little boy was playing with angels or doing random baby things or if this was something to do with autism, but this verse always takes me back to those times.

            Purity is something that our world has outgrown but is constantly searching for.  Purity…innocence is seen as nice, sweet, child-like.  It is tied to wonder and everyone assumes that it is something that you grow out of when the harsh realities of the world come crashing down on your defenseless ideals.  Conventional wisdom is that real adults have a harsh edge of suspicion and cynicism to them that comes from surviving the worst that life could throw at them.

            Purity of heart is a choice.  Plain and simple, it is a choice.  The state of our heart and our soul is a direct result of what we feed it.  They reflect what we choose to watch and think about and listen to.  There are a lot of great, award-winning television shows and movies that I choose not to watch because they take my heart to dark places.  There are also a lot of horrible shows and movies that I choose not to watch because I know they pour lust and fear and anger into the core of who I am.  The physical condition of our bodies are a direct result of what we put into them and how we use them.  Our souls are the same way.

            Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  The cleaner that our heart is, the more we see God moving and working.  The more that we can filter out lust and hatred, the more that we let go of fear and greed, the more that we allow God to remove the impurities from our heart...these directly tie into how much we will see God move and hear His voice and feel His presence.

            I think my son still plays with angels.  He is older now and does not lie on our bed watching them dance on the ceiling, but I think they whisper to his heart when he randomly laughs during the day.  I think they sing to him as he smiles in his sleep.  Those who are pure in heart get to see God.

A moment to reflect:

What diet are you feeding your heart?  If you want to see God more, how could that change?

Refrigerator Art of the Day:

D Age 15