HEART THOUGHTS from Helen

"Too Hot To Handle"

Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” Isaiah 6:5

I took one look at my son and I knew something wasn’t right. He didn’t feel good. Sure enough, he’d eaten hot wings the night before (and I do mean “HOT”). The consequences of his bravado showed themselves drastically for a number of hours. All the men in my family pride themselves on loving ‘hot stuff’. Hot peppers, hot wings, hot sauce, you name it, they want to try it. “Oh, that’s not hot!” I’ve heard it numerous times over the years. Apparently this time, the hot stuff was hotter than hot. Slowly I opened my purse and offered a quick solution, the antacid. It was accepted with thanks.

You’ve answered the questions on doctor’s information sheets, “Do you experience frequent heart burn? “ You know the vivid images of acid reflux as the man sits on the side of the bed in the middle of the night, rubbing his chest and then the x-ray picture of fire shooting down his esophagus. Time to run for the antacids: Rolaids, Tums, Prilosec, Prevacid, Zantac, whatever your drug of choice. Heart burn racks up some big time press on television, radio, billboards, drugstores and every other place you look. Do you think it may be a problem??? After some research into the sixth chapter of Isaiah, , I re-discovered the cause of the “Woe is me” Isaiah as it relates to the lips, the tongue, the body, in general. Not just ‘woe is me’, Isaiah, but ‘woe is ME’, Helen. Not that I’ve experienced anything as awe inspiring as Isaiah did when he saw the Lord, but nonetheless convicting in my own life. Unclean lips or heart burn…or both. You may also remember the old idiom, ‘through the lips, over the tongue; look out tummy, here it comes’.

Matthew 15 burned my conscience and I don’t like hot stuff, “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean’. For out of the heart come evil thoughts…” (v. 11, 18) “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34b). These verses sent me running for the spiritual ROLAIDS. What did Isaiah do when convicted of his sin? “I am a man of unclean lips.” He did the only appropriate thing to do.

James 3:6: “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell”. There are a number of other references on the tongue / lips that behoove us to fall on our faces and repeat after Isaiah, “Woe is me”.

Do you experience frequent heartburn? Is it of a spiritual nature? Please do not misinterpret what I say here. Physical heartburn or acid reflux may or may not be related to your spiritual condition. The ‘unclean lips’ passage reminded ME that not what I put in my mouth is the problem, but what comes out of my mouth that pertains to ‘heart-burn’ (Matthew 15:10). So, if you like hot stuff, that’s fine; just think about what comes out of your mouth after you put it in your mouth. You may discover that it’s too hot to handle. And ‘heart-burn’, if it pertains to spiritual conviction is a good thing. My drug of choice will be as the prophet’s: “Woe is me”. And I’m so thankful that following Isaiah’s conviction and confession, his sin was forgiven and God commissioned him to be the poet-prophet par excellence!

Holy Father, Lord of hosts, thank you for conviction, thank you for Your sacrificial gift for my forgiveness. Thank you that when “Woe is me” burns my heart, You readily provide the remedy.