We live in a rational world that values and reinforces logic and reason. We value using our brain to arrive at logical conclusions and rational decisions, using our intelligence (IQ) to gain more knowledge and compile more information. We have compartmentalized the head from the heart, reason from emotion. Prior to this “age of reason”, ancient peoples saw the heart as the core of a person, as a control center for the life. Interesting new research of the heart is working to reunite the heart and the head by identifying a heart-brain relationship. The heart is no longer seen as just a pump. . . it is also an information-encoding and processing center that works in complementary ways with the brain. Scientists are discovering that the two send messages back and forth, influencing the direction of our thoughts, emotions and behavior. The heart is instrumental for taking in information, processing it and making decisions that are a balance of head and heart, reason and emotion, creating both physiological and emotional harmony when the two are in synch with each other. It is a new kind of intelligence, much more important than a high IQ; perhaps we could say that it is SQ (spiritual intelligence). This is an intelligence that both thinks with the head and sees with the heart, creating a personal, intimate and life-changing knowledge of Christ.

In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul is asking them to gain that spiritual intelligence by asking them to open the eyes of their heart. Interestingly, the eye is also seen as a symbol of intelligence. What rich imagery that presents to us as we picture our hearts with eyes that are opened to the goodness of God and the riches of His blessings. Closed eyes create a picture of darkness, sleep, perhaps unconsciousness. Open eyes are letting in light, taking in beauty, creating conscious awareness of the surroundings. As Paul asks us to open the eyes of our heart, he is asking us to let in the light and beauty that God is both presenting to us and creating within us. Paul is wanting us to become spiritually intelligent, with eyes clear and focused on his presence in our lives and in our world so that we might enjoy both the “extravagance and endless energy of his work in us” (The Message).

With this invasion of light and life, we then become part of God’s bigger picture. Paul speaks of God’s inheritance in his saints. I believe we look at that and see “inheritance for his saints”, but instead, he is using words indicating that God’s inheritance, what He passes on, is in His saints. His saints are his inheritance and the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work through “the saints” or believers in the world. It all comes from opening the eyes of my heart.

Take a moment and reflect: