WARNING: Like any good chocolate–which contains 60% cocoa–this post contains 60% tongue-in-cheek humor, and has been produced from a place they may be associated with nutz nuts.
So, about Chocolate…
Recently, I’ve asked myself the questions, “Can I see God past my love of chocolate?” and “Am I stuffing chocolate into the so-called “God-shaped void” of my heart?”
It’s. not. so. simple.
First, we have to answer the questions: What is “the heart”? And does this heart “place” have a vacuum (missing spot, hole, etc)?
Okay. No. Let’s talk about the phrasing first.
This “God-shaped hole” phrase could be more viable, in the first place, if God were like a product, and would act predictably as such. If God were a pill, or a tool, or a consumable, then selling him as “the thing that fills us” would work a whole lot better. God could be like sliced bread, or an Apple product.
Don’t get me wrong, God actually is sold this way by folks each day. He’s promised as the only thing to be the perfect fit, the best boyfriend ever, or the one who (like a class president with a Mexican heritage), will “make your wildest dreams come true.”
But how about the brass tacks?
Like Snickers, does God satisfy?
Well, to be honest, I’d have to say “yes”, “no”, and “sometimes”.
Optimally, yes, God does. God has the potential to, but I haven’t seen anyone able to really take him up on all his selling features, and be “satisfied” too consistently–especially during God’s silent times, or terribly rough periods of life. Personally, losing my dad made me feel particularly not satisfied by God. For a long time. This most likely has to do with spiritual immaturity, but I’ve lived long enough to see it as a typical human response.
Though God’s perfect, the reality of the situation brings to bear the bigger question, and probably more important question: What relationship DOES satisfy us? Or, is satisfaction even the point? I’m going to buck the popular belief and say, “No. It is not the point. The situation probably cannon come to resolution this way.”
How do you see it? Maybe I can be better enlightened.
Now, back to the first point: “What is the heart?” The common, and I will add contemporary, understanding of the heart has to do primarily with our emotions, affections, feelings, or loyalties. Do you agree? But, if we consider this meaning was not AT ALL a Biblical understanding of the word “heart,” a whole bunch of things can do a 180º, like K.I.T. in Knight Rider.
Heart, in Hebrew terms, was synonymous with the word “mind”, or the decision center of a person. “Heart” was considered fully tied to the choice of will. So, our phrase, “follow your heart” is a modern day example of the opposite connotation of one’s “heart” in the Bible. With the Greek language, the same understanding remains for the Hebrew understanding: The “heart” is we think of as “the mind”. All those verses, like “The heart is deceitful above all things, who can trust it…” Well, that is speaking about the mind, not that thing that “falls in love” or gets sentimental. WE are deceitful partial by nature and partially by a choice of will. That the blunt accuracy version of the topic.
With this in mind (unfortunate pun #1. Ugh sorry), is there even a “hole” to fill? Do any heart-type voids have more to do with desire, or something of a more fleeting variety? Weigh in on this, if you will. (Pardon unfortunate pun #2.)
In conclusion, can I come to the answer for “‘what chocolate is filling for me”?
No. Unless you allow “empty calories” or “once loose fitting jeans” for answers.
One more question:
Milk or Dark chocolate?
What an interesting analogy. I pray that you find what you’re looking for.
leeleegirl. Your prayers have been answered.
Dark chocolate all the way. Except today I had a Kit Kat after lunch, which is totally out of character for me.
Good point about not treating God as a product to enhance our lives.
The way I look at it, viewing the heart and mind as separate is extrabiblical; thus, in fact, “that thing that ‘falls in love’ or gets sentimental” *is* the mind. So the modern “follow your heart” does not connote the *opposite* of the biblical “heart,” but rather only *part* of it. Bottom line, I can’t trust my mind or my heart, or even my own spirit completely… only God is 100% trustworthy.
As for filling our “voids” with things “besides” God, I try to remember that God gets the credit for all good things anyway. Yes, we shouldn’t bow down to those good things or let them control us, but as long as we submit them to God, I think we have the freedom to enjoy them. If that Hershey bar helps my brain feel like it’s getting a few more endorphins or whatever the heck is going on, I don’t see a problem with that.
And these days I’m on a milk chocolate kick, so it has to be the sealed “fun size” Hersheys, not those wretched miniatures with folded-over wrappers that make them go stale quickly. Fresh, milky, and melt-in-your-mouth thin. Yummy.
I should have also pointed out that the Hebrew equivalent of the emotions or passions (what many now consider the “heart”) were referred to differently than the mind. i.e. a different category, if you will. The bowels or “guts” was the inference connected with those qualities.
To sum up, in the Bible, most especially in the Old Testament:
1. What is translated as “heart” (in the KJV and others) is closer to what we now term as “the mind”. More specifically, the command center, which includes the will.
2. What we may think of as “the heart” that is, passions, desires, emotions, is in the Hebrew language connected with “the guts” or bowels of a person.
ALSO a big difference is the word translated “soul”. In Hebrew it refers to the whole being. The whole person. As in, “30 souls were lost [died] in the shipwreck.”
So should we “go with our gut”? :)