S.A.F.E – seated, awake, focused and engaged. 

This is the acronym used in my school as an expectation of students’ behaviour in class. Behaviour is such an important reflection of a person. We are often told to judge people not by their appearance, and so we look instead to their behaviour. How they speak, how they act towards others.

As a teacher, I was in the business of controlling students’ behaviour. And I prided myself in being able to “solve” behavioural issues. Sadly, I started to find myself trying to forcefully change my own behaviour and that of others in my personal life. Some of those drills sound a little like this:

• I need to eat fewer sweets so I don’t feel so horrible all the time
• I should stop harping on the negative thoughts, and try to be thankful
• I should read the Bible more
• We must worry less about money and trust God more
• You should try to rest more
• Just stop trying to do so much

We probably recognise these lines as things we’ve told ourselves or others. And on the surface, there’s nothing wrong, right? After all, I want to improve myself, and I love the people around me, so offering advice on how they – or I – can behave differently, is all with good intentions.

Perhaps you can immediately think of a few habits, patterns of thought, actions that you know are not edifying or not what God has intended for you. Maybe you are struggling with uncontrollable anger or deep depression. Or you’re standing alongside people who are facing some of these issues.

But that crippling sense of failure when I can’t change my behaviour, or the anger that I feel when I can’t “be more thankful”, and the frustration at others when they can’t just “get their act together” leaves me feeling so helpless, so confused, and so despondent.

As Asians, we focus a lot on the actions. There are many said/unsaid rules about behaviour.

We generally expect people to follow a certain progression of actions in life – study, graduate, find a job, find a partner, buy a house, get married, have kids, work, retire, and have nice holidays in between.

Of course, this is a sweeping generalisation but I think to some degree, we can sense an expectation of behaviour, such as respecting those older than us, and when people don’t behave in a certain way we are disturbed.

But what if we dug a little deeper? What if actions are merely the tip of the iceberg protruding out from the surface of the water, and there is a gigantic chunk of ice beneath it? What if we pushed past the facades of surface behaviours and got to the heart of the issues we struggle with?

We often refer to the heart as the home of our emotions. But in the Bible, the heart is a person’s centre for both physical and emotional-intellectual-moral activities. In other words, it extends beyond just feelings but often to what is perhaps less accessible, less seen. Your actions are visible to others, but your heart and its thoughts, feelings, intentions – these are hidden.

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45)

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)

So much of what we do is driven by the invisible. The need for survival, the anxiety of being disliked, the excitement of pursuing your passion … It is unfortunate that we often try to control the outward behaviour of others or ourselves without pushing past to get to the heart of it.

So much healing and transformation can take place if root issues are addressed instead of their visible manifestations.

But what can we do if all we can clearly see is the external?

“… For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” (1 Corinthians 2:10-12).

What a relief to hear that the Holy Spirit has the power to search the hearts of man, and to give revelation of the roots beneath our own actions or patterns of thinking.

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24)

Honestly, I’m still learning to not immediately pick on people’s actions, but to ask God why and what is going on in their hearts so I can be a better listener, and to love them better.

I’m also learning to be gentle and gracious with myself. On a personal front, I found that I hesitated when people said things like “you’re beautiful” or “you’re so amazing”. I could never fully receive those words.

At first, it seemed like nothing much, maybe it was my Asian humility. But the Holy Spirit revealed this to me about my heart: I didn’t believe that I deserved to be loved. I didn’t believe that I’m valued or important.

“I mean, that’s just ridiculous,” I told God. I knew people loved me, of course, I knew Jesus loved me. But the years of putting up a guard – a wall – around my heart to protect it from heartbreak and disappointment meant that a callous layer had grown around it. It made it so hard to receive anything other than what I’d taught myself to believe.

Heart work is hard work. It requires so much vulnerability to lower your guard and allow yourself to feel what you have numbed for so long. It is a frightening thing to look at the pain head-on and acknowledge that you’ve been hurt by those incidents, those words.

It takes courage to go back to that place of pain, to allow God to heal you as you receive and release forgiveness.

God is a loving father who is as gentle as He is strong. He gently nudges us to that place of vulnerability, and when we allow Him, He enters and heals those broken places.

And when we allow Him to work in and on our hearts, we find that we are no longer chained to the pain. We find that we can love a little better, we can recognise goodness a little faster, and we can be joyful for much longer.

I found the roots, the heart of my inability to receive, and I asked God to work on that, to heal my past hurts and disappointment. I found strength in Him to release forgiveness and to ask for forgiveness for the harmful things I do to myself. And I actively pursued God’s love for me.

Again and again, I speaking over myself the words of Isaiah 43:1.

“But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.'” (Isaiah 43:1)

A wise lady once said to me, “Keep speaking these truths, marinate yourself in them, for years even, because this is not long compared to the years you have lived with lies.”

I come back to my tendencies to alter people’s behaviour. When I remember the work the Holy Spirit has to do in and on my heart, I remind myself of two things:

1. To never despair or give up on others
2. Remember in prayer that it is not me who changes others – it will never be me – it is only by the Holy Spirit that hearts can be changed

My prayer for us is simple: That we will know that we don’t have to live in fear or in pain, that we can let go of the guards we’ve put up and come before God open and vulnerable. He will love us and heal us, and there will be so much joy waiting for us – beyond our thoughts and imagination (Ephesians 3:20).

This article was first published on Delphne’s blog and is republished with permission.