Leadership scandals may be popular, but they are hardly new. The big-name leaders who splatter the pavement with drama are falling into a long-standing leadership trend, which traces back three thousand years to Saul, first king of Israel.
The question we must explore together is, what made Saul fall? Because the answer may help us find the ground upon which we can stand.
What Made Saul Fall?
Saul started out small in his own eyes. On the day of his coronation, he is not hungering for the spotlight but hiding among the baggage (1 Sam. 10:22). Samuel summarized Saul’s early self-estimation by saying, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. (1 Sam.15: 17)
But Saul turned back from following God and obeying his commandments (1 Sam. 15:10). He grew complacent. Saul stayed in the shade instead of storming the enemy (1 Sam. 14:2). He dilly-dallied while the battle commenced (1 Sam. 14:18-19). He shrank back while Goliath talked smack (1 Sam. 17:11).
Eventually, his life passion was to protect his role, not serve God’s people. This led to him hunting king-elect David with the full force of Israel’s army (1 Sam. 18:12-16; 1 Sam 23:8). Another example of the prior generation seeking to vilify the next move of God.
Saul became too important to the kingdom, at least in his own mind. He started off small, then grew too large. Eventually, he fell.
Question: How can we change course? How do we ensure we don’t turn back from following the Lord, become complacent and seek to assassinate our successor?
Answer: We become heart-sighted.
What Does Heart-Sighted Mean?
“Heart-sighted” means you see and value the activity of the heart. Saul feared man and idolized appearances. In a prior article[DH1] , I made the case that his mentor, Samuel, made the same mistake when he first saw Eliab, Jesse’s oldest son.
“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7)
Here God is announcing where he looks when defining success for leaders. Essential to leadership impact and longevity is knowing the answer to this one central question:
What is this “heart” upon which the Lord looks?
The heart is who we really are. It’s the center of our life, of desire and motivation. It’s the source of our character, our will, our convictions.
“The heart” is what we say in our head, what we silently think and feel. The heart is what generates those angry thoughts after the confrontation. It’s what turns our gaze to forbidden fruit online. It’s what bursts out in impatience when people don’t do what we want. It’s what overflows into self-pity when life doesn’t go our way.
Your heart is the real you. This explains why the Bible teaches that our heart determines the course of our life,
“Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
and overflows into all we say:
“For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Matt. 12:25)
Pause and think about this for a moment. The words that tumble forth from your mouth indicate what’s in your heart.
The heart is an active worshiping, longing center of desires, constantly being pricked and poked by life. And moments of pressure reveal what we really treasure in our heart.
I remember one of my and Kimm’s first fights. Kim was talking; I was getting agitated. My blood was churning, heart pounding. If I didn’t speak, there would be some cosmic injustice!
We’ve all been there.
Finally, I said, “Dear, please stop talking. You’re making me angry, and you’re making me sin.” You may have never been stupid enough to say it out loud, but we have all believed it in our heart.
It’s a replay of Genesis 3: The things that “made” me sin were outside of me (“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Gen 3: 12). I didn’t understand that trying circumstances squeeze the heart and then reveal heart. What’s in the heart spills out.
Like Adam, I was wife-sighted, not heart-sighted.
Is My Heart Soaked in Sin?
Your heart is like a sponge. In Genesis 3, Original Sin arrives through man’s sin—and then, death. Original Sin plunges our heart into the bucket of Adam’s Fall. The sin of the first human soaks our heart too.
Life happens and the heart gets squeezed. And whatever is in the heart comes out. Maybe it’s an argument with your spouse. Maybe it’s a criticism from your boss. Maybe it’s that door left open (the air conditioning is running!), or the light left on. Maybe it’s the kid pitching a fit. “Calm down,” Dad screams.
Whatever’s happening, your sponge is getting squeezed. What’s in the heart spills out. Your heart is being revealed.
Maybe like me you tend to think “They’re making me sin. The situation is making me act this way. It’s just my emotional reaction to this circumstantial pressure.”
But people can’t make you sin. They simply cannot. Neither can circumstances, or pressure. All they do is squeeze the sponge. All they do is reveal your heart. Not even Satan can make you sin. Satan tempts the heart—which is to say, he manipulates the sponge. He adds a little pressure, a little squeeze, and watches our hearts trickle out. But he is working with what is already present.
Where Does the Lord Look?
To come full circle, here’s the sobering truth, That is where God looks. That’s the place God sees and considers. It is where God takes his measure of who we really are. God values the heart. He esteems the heart. He works in the heart.
The question is: Do we look where God looks? Do we value what God values? Do we esteem what God esteems? Are we heart-sighted?
To gaze into the heart is to stare into an abyss. It can be very discouraging, if we’re not careful. If you find yourself disheartened.
Cheer up: it’s much worse than you think!
The reality is, even when we have the purest motives and clearest vision, we only see a sliver of the breadth of our sin. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17: 9). On our best day, our vision is partial. But God’s eyes penetrate all the way down. He sees all our sin and shame. He sees our self-righteousness too—even that smug, “holy” feeling you have for agreeing with these words. And even the smugness I have in writing them!
But this is all part of God’s good news. God sees it all; he knows our inescapably impurity. He is, in fact, the only one who is ever truly “heart-sighted.” And he only ever saw one pure heart. It wasn’t David’s, or Abraham or Elijah. It wasn’t yours and it is certainly not mine.
Jesus lived a perfect life on earth with a heart that was completely pure. When circumstances squeezed his sponge, no sin ever spilled out. Because there was none there to begin with. And yet, Jesus was judged like the vilest criminal. All the wrath that you and I deserve for all the idols we love and worship—for all the desires of our hearts that trickle out in lust or fear; for everything that make us short-sightedly obsessed with man’s good favor. God judged Jesus Christ in our place and then replaced our hearts of stone with his heart of flesh.
This is how we become “heart-sighted.”
My friend, God wants to captivate you with Jesus Christ. He wants you to see what Christ has accomplished for you. He wants to make Jesus so utterly delightful that he’s way more enjoyable than the pleasure that accompanies sin or the glory that comes from man. He wants you to be free from the tyranny of self, because you know God has taken your sin-soaked sponge and plunged it into the cleansing waters of redemption, filling you with his purifying Holy Spirit.
The gospel reminds us each and every day: Because of what Christ accomplished on our behalf, we need not fear the depravity of our heart. By looking closely at the gospel, we can find the courage and the clarity to look where God looks without losing sight of what God has done in Christ.
Photo by stock_colors on Unsplash
