The Five Tools That Help You Discern in Life: Part 3 “My Heart”

The Five Tools That Help You Discern

Part 3: My heart

You have learned the first two tools out of five: Physical Sensations and Emotions and Feelings. The third tool might possibly be the most difficult for you to identify or admit to because it requires you to look at your past experiences and the rejection, wounds, and hurts that you received through those situations. Your experiences have produced messages that have formed patterns of thoughts and behaviors. Who you are today was formed by those messages and your beliefs, expectations, and behaviors developed.

The third tool to discern is your Heart Condition Filter. In Greek your heart can be defined as your center, the core of your being. Your heart can further be defined as your facilities, powers, affections, feelings, soul, and thoughts. You must make an honest evaluation of the condition of your heart based on your experiences; it is crucial in being able to discern your thinking within situations because the condition of your heart acts as a filter to all the information that comes through your senses before you arrive at a perception.

Your heart condition filter is what forms your faulty beliefs that are shaped and then triggered through your personal experiences. For example, little Sally didn’t have many friends as a child. She moved around a lot and every time she arrived at a new place she tried to make friends, but it seemed everyone already had enough friends.

From that experience as a child she felt rejection because no one wanted to be her friend. Now Sally is an adult and she has lived in the same city for years. She has successfully made friends, yet anytime she invites her friends to do something and they have another engagement, or are too busy and they can’t meet her plans, she feels rejected. Her past experience comes back even though there are logical reasons that her friends cannot spend time with her. Her discernment of the situation is coming through her heart condition filter.

God desires to heal your heart. The scriptures teach us that God binds up the brokenhearted. The big news to some of us is that ALL of us can be defined as the brokenhearted; none of us have escaped our life experiences without rejection and wounds. You need to identify your heart condition filter. Understanding your specific sensitivities is an important tool in understanding an interaction between you and another person. If you know your heart condition filter you can discern the situation and not be subject to faulty beliefs and the emotions and behaviors that they may produce.

Copyright  © 2012 by Michele Fleming Ph.D.