The Pharisee Saul of Tarsus believed that in persecuting the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, he was doing the will of God. The conflict within him came from the religious knowledge that guided the thoughts of his mind and the increasing conviction of his heart.
The latter came from witnessing the testimony of Stephen, the first follower of Christ to be martyred. Saul, who had witnessed the stoning, could not forget the angelic look on Stephen’s face during the stoning.
When called to be an apostle years later, Saul changed his name to Paul, which name means “Least”. Paul saw himself as the least of the apostles because of his persecution of Christ’s followers prior to his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road. Thereafter, the thoughts in Paul’s head and the faith in his heart worked together in harmony (as seen in his epistles).
When Jesus revealed himself to Saul on the road to Damascus, the conflict was resolved there and then! Many men today are likewise torn between questions of their minds and the issues in their hearts. Only when Jesus reveals himself as the living Lord are the questions of the mind and the issues of the heart resolved. Harmony then begins.
Women are more in touch with their feelings, and because salvation begins with believing, they have a good heart start. The minds of most men catch up with their hearts later on. Women in general are more intuitive and so find it easy to believe, whereas men are more logical and they need to be convinced in their minds (Romans 10:10).
Unless, that is, they encounter Jesus in a similar way to my personal encounter with Jesus. After being convicted in my heart for three weeks, the Lord came to me one evening in my flat in Heidelberg, Melbourne, and ordered me to surrender — with a voice of such authority that resistance was useless! Jesus then ordered me to write out my surrender, which I did on a piece of paper. Then he told me to place it on the mantlepiece. I did, and woke up the next morning a new man.
My first year as a Christian was spent in a heart-to-heart relationship with Jesus through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. I worked in a furniture and floor coverings store in the heart of the Melbourne CBD at the time, and that first year as a new believer was dreamlike. In my mind, I quoted prices based on room sizes measured by customers, took orders on furniture, and arranged finance and deliveries; however, my heart was in Heaven.
After a year or so, my mind and my heart came together in harmony. It was a somewhat low descent, one that I would have preferred not to make. Better though than being “too heavenly minded to of any earthly use”. Maybe some are too earthly minded to of any heavenly use. Most of us end up living somewhere in between (which must be something of a relief to those around us who are not Christians and no longer can understand us).
The Resurrection is the Great Hope of the Church, and the second greatest hope might well be the harmony between the mind and the heart. The physical distance between the two is measurable, but the distance between heartfelt faith and head-bound thinking can be infinite.
While talking with me in his office about marital arts, by which I mean the art of overcoming misunderstandings between marital partners, a minister inadvertently used the term “martial arts”. We both laughed at the mistake and then he added, “Sometimes there’s no difference between the two”. Then he said, “East is East and West is West, and never the toes shall touch.”
Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the Harmony of Mind and Heart. Get that right and everything else will follow.