Launch Points

When wisdom enters your heart,
& knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
discretion will preserve you….
~Proverbs 2:10-11~

I’m always looking for bits about how people take in information. It’s very interesting to me to learn why a person sees life the way they do, & even more, how they respond based on what they see. Largely, I believe we take in information from either our hearts (emotionally), or our heads (cognitively). This is simply a point of entry (in truth, all stimuli enters through the brain but for some of us it moves at lightening speed to our hearts). The perfect scenario would be that information, once absorbed, would have balanced access to both our head & heart, giving us the means to respond in a reasonable way to whatever the stimuli is. If you’re like me, you’re already doing a self-exam. I launch from my head. No question.

I think it’s very useful to know your primary launch point as well as that of the core people in your life. What does a heart launcher look like? What does a head launcher look like? What does a person look like who, regardless of where they launch, brings balanced responses to life day in and out.

Two fascinating biblical examples are Peter, formally known as Simon, and Paul formerly known as Saul. Peter/Simon was a heart launcher, primarily a reactor.  The night Jesus was betrayed Peter experienced within himself the potential to injure & abandon someone he loved deeply, through his impetuousness. We see a VERY different man after the resurrected Jesus pulls him aside for a one on one conversation. Peter’s subsequent writings indicate a man of passion, but balanced…….responding to life rather than reacting to it.

Paul/Saul was ”heady”, disciplined & educated. His murderous endeavors before the Damascus road experience were a pragmatic response to the “heretic’s” he fully believed needed to be silenced, (some might call him utterly heartless). So when a redeemed Paul writes to the church he once persecuted, his pragmatism is clearly tempered with deep devotion and love…..his heart & mind balanced.

Do you find it interesting that once God was allowed to take control, there came the marriage of heart and mind? Do you also find it interesting that once God was in control, a new name was given to both men….a name God chose as they began to live out His purposes for them? That fact is tucked away in both stories but it’s significant.

Perhaps one day in eternity future, when we are living out our existence, heart & mind in perfect sync, we will remember these moments of inquiry & wondering. Perhaps in one of those moments we’ll reach in a pocket & feel that white stone on which is written our new name, a name reflective of our wholeness.

To him who overcomes….
I will give a white stone,
& on the stone
a new name written
which no one knows
except him who receives it.
~Revelation 2:17~