By Chuck Davis
A few years ago, I was having a Starbucks coffee and reflection reading time. During that era, the coffee company was putting interesting sayings from customers on the throw away coffee cups. So, that day, I was served a bold brew with the following phrase:
The Way I See It # 76
“The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.”
Anne Morriss
Starbucks customer from NYC
Anne had me at the beginning of the quote: “the irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating.” I have found this to be true of my life experience. When our hearts are fully in, we are saved a lot of wasted thought time around “what ifs” and second guessing. Life is challenging enough without the internal or external critic taking up our creative energies.
And beyond my personal experience, this principle rings true in God’s Word. There are so many “with all your heart” declarations that I cannot begin to list them. One whatever you do phrase captures them all.
Whatever you do, do it with all your heart, as working
for the Lord, not for men. Colossians 3:23
What I hear in that biblical admonition is unflinching commitment, which leads to reward. This is true even when our work does not bring the full results of what we anticipated. The experience of work itself is pedagogy. As the contemporary philosopher has said, “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.”
So, you can see how Anne had me in the beginning of the quote. However, I felt distance develop at the last phrase: “To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.” Let me explain.
If Anne is saying that we need to remove negative thinking, I am still tracking with her.
If Anne is saying that head without heart is dead, I am still tracking with her.
But if to remove our head suggests somehow skipping the “right thinking” process, I am not so much on board.
I hear these contemporary mantras often – “just do what you feel” or “just do what your heart tells you.” The challenge for me in these value propositions is that I know my own heart at times is not rightly aligned. And I do not think this challenge is only mine.
Jeremiah the prophet asks the rhetorical question,
“who can really know or understand the heart as it is deceitful above all things?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
The honest response is a loud “no one!” Come on, you know your own heart. It is not always firing correctly.
That tells me that I can be sincere, passionate, and deeply committed, but maybe to the wrong things, or even the right things in the wrong way or time. Thus, I need a head that is not removed but fully engaged; a head that is being shaped by right thoughts. Each of us needs a true north indicator, that is outside of “my truth.” For me it is the Bible. What is your true north?
I guess I would want to change her last line: “To commit is to be fully engaged in head and heart.” When my head is full of God’s thoughts, there will be less room for my own thoughts or the misinformed thoughts and opinions that swirl around me. When my heart is full of God’s courage and commitment to fulfill covenant promises, there will be less room for my own self-doubt to creep in.
We are head and heart people. Head and heart need to operate in dynamic tension. King David from the Bible prayed the following –
“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
(Psalm 139:23-24).
This is especially interesting, since David is acclaimed in the Bible as having a heart after God. Seems like a pretty good prayer for all of us.
