We Are What We Are

Eddie Ackloo said that to me Saturday evening.

My 84 year old friend from British Guyana said, “John, before you go, let me leave you with a quote. “We Are What We Are.”

I have already forgotten who he quoted on that but nonetheless it remains true.

And I have been thinking about that quote for a couple of days now.

Psalm 8:4 says, “What is man, that You take thought of him? And the son of man, that You take care of him?”

But it’s Monday morning. And life awaits us all out there. I don’t need this heaviness on a Monday morning.

I was going to write about and think about the little train that could, the movie Rudy, Field of Dreams and quotes from Winnie the Pooh because it’s Monday.

But as I sit in my sin and as my sinful nature remains constant in my life I am driven more to matters of the heart. The heart, in my humble opinion, make us what we are. The mind enhances and further makes us capable of understanding and give us the ability to seek knowledge, But it is the heart that drives one forward in life. And on a Monday.

It is what causes us to do good or to withhold kindness from another.

It is what draws us toward God or because our heart hardens causes us to pull away.

Blaise Pascal writing his work Pensees stated it like this.

“It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.”

So on this Monday, though my mind and reason will certainly be part of the equation for the day, I want it to be my heart that defines this day along with my actions so that my desires may be centered on Christ as we begin Holy Week.

Today, I want my heart to be the center point of the phrase, “We Are What We Are”.

JHH