Understand a Broken Heart

 Communist Meet and Kiss at the Berlin Wall

I have been helping people with broken hearts, minds and souls for a long time and evidence is coming in from research and other Helpers that the condition of the inner life is predictive to what the person does in their daily life. That reality has a long history of comments in the Bible and ancient literature but we sometimes forget that we are not the first people to ponder why people do awful things.

 

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.

Genesis 6:4-6
From the very first chapter of the Bible we can read that when evil resides in the heart it comes out into real life and does bad things. It is interesting to note the term used here is "Inclination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil..." This is getting at the basic intentions of the heart.

Throughout the scripture and history humans have tended to use heart, mind, and soul inter changeably. 

“Before I had finished speaking in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her water jar on her shoulder; and she went down to the spring, and drew. I said to her, ‘Please let me drink.’

Genesis 24:44-46 This is how we would describe a thought but he used heart.

But Hamor spoke with them, saying, “The heart of my son Shechem longs for your daughter; please give her to him in marriage.

Genesis 34:7-9 Heart her means romantic longing.

He said to his brothers, “My money has been put back; here it is in my sack!” At thi

s they lost heart and turned trembling to one another, saying, “What is this that God has done to us?”

Genesis 42:27-29 Courage is meant here. 
 One of the primary purposes of Rabbis and Wise Men or Prophets in the Old Testament was to guide and care for the souls of the people. Throughout church history the church has emphasized what the Germans call seelsorge or soul care/cure.We call it psychology for the soul is psyche in Greek. It is all the same idea with slightly terms. I am sometimes amused when a few of my Christian friends refuse to go to counseling because it is a sin to use psychology. Every time they read the Wisdom Literature they are seeking psychological assistance.

The Wisdom Literature was written by leaders who collected the wise sayings from well known leaders around the region and put them together into what we call Proverbs. Solomon wrote many of them but certainly not all.

One thing is for sure. It is not possible to bring change to my habits, and behavior without first changing my heart, mind, soul. Out of the heart come the issues of life. And that takes a lot of heard work and deep listening. The first rule of leadership is the ability to listen.

The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.

Proverbs 20:4-6 

The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.

Proverbs 18:14-16
I have written several books to train leaders how to listen and bring healing to hidden hurting hearts. Go to the web and see the book store. The first book to start with to understand broken hearts is Breaking Free to be all You Want Me to Be.