Moving Faith from the Head to the Heart

One of the most common struggles that men come to me with for spiritual direction is the divide they feel between their head and heart. It comes up in a hundred different ways, but the gist of it is this: They know something about God, maybe a lot, but they don’t experience Him in their hearts.

Faith seems like looking at a picture book of the Grand Canyon. Inspiring photos and helpful information, but that’s about it. But those of you who have been there know that when you see the Grand Canyon, no book could ever communicate the experience of awe at seeing a hole in the earth 1 mile deep and 20 miles across. And there’s the rub. How does a man experience God this way?

A few clarifications

Let me make a few things clearer. In light of brain science, I’m going to define thinking in our heads as using the left side of our brain and experiencing in our hearts as using the right side. This is a little simplistic, but the basic idea holds.

I also want to mention that we now understand the brain as a part of the mind, which is a whole body connection that includes what we feel in our chests, hence what we call our hearts.

I also want to clarify one last thing. When men begin to talk about the heart, some are resistant because it enters the realm of feeling. Because of culture or family of origin, emotion may have been not discussed, ignored, or worse still, consigned to the domain of women. But the reality is that the human brain organizes itself every second around emotion. If we breathe, we are feeling something. If we choose to resist, suppress, or ignore feeling, we become what C. S. Lewis called “men without chests.” It’s not a pretty picture.

Factors that keep men in their heads

I already mentioned backgrounds that may suppress emotion. Here are some other factors that deepen the chasm. We live in the after-fumes of the Enlightenment worldview. It basically told us that if we could understand everything in the world rationally (that is, understand it in our heads), we would find the key to life. This worldview has significantly eroded in the last century, but its odor still hangs in the air.

We also live in a culture that prizes knowledge. There is such a drive to become an expert in something. Men are rewarded for being able to solve problems, fix issues, and come up with new solutions. Nothing necessarily wrong with this, but it’s all left-brain work.

Finally, some of us come from faith traditions that prize head knowledge. If we know the correct teachings and try to follow them, we are affirmed and applauded for it. This seems to be the key to following Jesus. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way. There is nothing wrong with knowing good theology. But it’s only first base. It’s not the goal of baseball. And it’s not the goal of faith in Christ either. The goal is to experience Him, love Him, and become like Him.

How our brains were created to work

Here is another thing that really helped me in my own journey from the head to the heart. The way our brains want to work is like this: We go out into life and something happens to us. Then we think about it and learn from it. Or to put it more simply. We sense something first and then we try to make sense of it. The brain was created so that the right side comes into gear first, and then the left side helps it along. Again, this is very simplistic, but the basic idea is true.

Babies don’t even have a functioning left side of the brain until two years of age. They are just floating in a sea of experiences and feelings until then. So this way of using our brains has a chronological underpinning from our own physiological development.

But what really convinced me of this was opening the Bible. Time and time again, literally everywhere, there is a story of someone encountering God and then after that trying to come to terms with it. You can start with Abraham and go all the way through Paul. It’s every character’s story in the Bible. They experienced God and then tried to make sense of it. Heart first, then head.

Moving faith from the head to the heart

All of the above a set up for this. How does a man move his faith more into his heart? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Try making prayer an experience. Use worship music. Go on a prayer walk. Listen to Scripture being read. Try different positions in prayer. Light a candle. Use an essential oil (this sounded weird to me until I started using frankincense). Go to a favorite nature setting, notice beauty, and talk to God there.
2. Start prayer by answering these two questions: How am I coming to God? What do I most desire? Both of these can only be answered from the heart realm. It’s a great place to start a conversation with God.
3. Use your imagination in prayer. This one was huge for me. Instead of just reading a story in the Bible, try to imagine it. Place yourself in it, and see what the experience feels like. Then talk to Jesus about it.
4. Find another man or a few men who are willing to talk about their hearts and faith. This is a communal matter as well. We need others to move life from the head to the heart.
5. Come to a Quiet Day, a half-day guided experience into silence and encountering God. We have two more this fall on Oct. 11 and Nov. 15.

Spiritual direction can also be profoundly helpful in this journey. In fact, the conversations I have as a spiritual director are all about how a man is (or is not) experiencing God. It’s all about the heart first and then making sense of it with our heads.

Why move faith from the head to the heart? It’s all about coming alive as a man. Here you will experience wonder, awe, beauty, and the conquering love of Jesus.

Bill

PS. The 8th Annual Pig Roast is this coming Saturday, Oct. 5. This is our annual, men’s-night-out fundraiser. It is an experience! Buy a ticket here.

PSS. If you want to read more about the divide between the head and heart, check out this book.