“As in water face reflects face,

                        so the heart of man reflects the man.”

(Proverbs 27:19 The Holy Bible, English Standard Version)

Proverbs, whether those in the Bible or those in use in our culture, are often terse and ambiguous.  The terseness is so that we can remember them.  The ambiguity is so that we won’t think that we know them better than we do, or take them for granted.

Take Proverbs 27:19 for example.  There are various translations that go in different directions.  Some suggest that, like a mirror, the heart reflects a person’s life.  Other translations suggest that the life of a person reflects that person’s heart.

I looked at the Hebrew in which this proverb was written.  It could go either way.  So, which way do we take it?

I subscribe to the Yogi Berra school of linguistics.  If you come to a fork in the road, take it.  In other words, if something in God’s Word is ambiguous, perhaps that is intentional.

So, does our heart reflect our life, or does our life reflect our heart?

My short answer is “Yes!”  Heart and life are a cycle, whether that cycle is vicious, virtuous, or (as with most of us) vacillating.   A good life reflects good heart, and a good heart reflects a good life.

But it’s not just about reflection.  It is about formation.  When I look at myself in the mirror, it is not simply for information.  I want to see if I need to shave, or if I’ve gotten all the shaving cream off my face and head.  I want to see whether my tie is straight.  I want to not just see what I look like.  I want to do whatever I can to look better.  (And you thought it was just women who did this sort of thing?  You’d better think again!)

So, if I want to have as good a reflection as possible, I need to ask myself two questions.

The first question is “How is my heart?’  Proverbs says that we need to guard our hearts diligently (4:23).  Why?  Because “issues of life” (King James Version) come out of the heart.  The New International Version says it this way:

“Above all else, guard your heart,

            for everything you do flows from it.”

“The heart” in Hebrew does not refer just to emotions or love.  Instead, the root lebab “. . . became the richest biblical term for the totality of man’s inner or immaterial nature” (Andrew Bowling, Theological Word Wordbook of the Old Testament, en loc).  The Hebrew root lebab has to do with our thoughts and our will, as much (or more) than it has to do with our emotions.    While our thoughts and will are immaterial, they are the very material of which our lives are made.  In other words, while our will and thoughts are immaterial in one sense, they are most definitely not immaterial in the other sense.

Merely looking good on the outside—or even doing what is good externally—is enough.  The question that must be asked, and answered as honestly as possible, is “How is my heart?”

But the second question is equally important.  “How is my life?”  What we do with our lives affects our hearts.  And here, I am not talking about smoking or drinking or high cholesterol, which affect our physical hearts.  I am talking about whatever we do in our external lives that affects our will and our thinking, as well as our emotions.

A simple illustration may help.  If I eat a bunch of sweets, I am much more prone to lustful thoughts.  Sorry to be so frank, but there it is.  What good can my blog possibly be to anyone if I don’t speak the truth?  Not someone else’s truth, but my own.

So, look at yourself in two mirrors: the mirror of your heart and the mirror of your life.  Do you like what you see?  If not, pray to God for a change of heart and a change of life.  You do not have to do this alone.  ln fact, if you’re like me, you will never be able to do it on your own.