Proverbs 20:5 “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”

It had been a hard few years of marriage. John and his wife hadn’t had a peaceful week as long as they could remember. Each day brought new struggles. Their intimacy was marked by frustration. Their conversations were always volatile.

As Philip drove the car and listened to John speak in general terms about the frustration he felt, Philip finally said “I bet that’s really hard man. Does it make you doubt that God loves you when that happens?” John paused for a moment and said, “I think so.” Philip proceeded to ask questions and for the first time in a long time, John opened up and began to speak and weep deeply. It was as if Philip had uncovered a spring in John’s heart that had been long sealed up.

Our hearts are deep chambers. God made us that way. We were created to love and hope deeply. Sin has, however, wounded us. Our hearts tend to become calloused and deadened over time. We try not to feel as much because it hurts. We’re honest less because we’re not sure anyone really cares how we feel any way. So we hide it all away in the depths of our hearts. Very often we don’t even know what’s stored away in there.

Our proverb instructs us of the importance of being around people of understanding. We need people who are filled with God’s Spirit who are able to draw out from us the deep waters of our soul. At the same time, it seems right that we ought strive to be these kind of people. We should pray that God will fill our churches with people who love one another enough to draw out the depths of one another’s hearts.

We need to have and be people who will draw out sin from the heart. We are liars by nature who hate for our sin to be exposed. We must not allow surface convos to suffice. Have people around you who ask hard and probing questions. Allow them to walk around in your soul and open up the draws of your heart. At the same time, seek to be the kind of person who loves others enough to dig into their hearts. Of course you need their permission, but ask deep questions and leave no sin buried away.

We also need to have and be people who draw out fears from the heart. Fear is the kryptonite to faith. To grow in devotion to Christ, we must have people who help expose the areas of fear in our lives. We need help getting behind our protective shells of hypocrisy and to honestly deal with what keeps us from trusting God. We should at the same time ask God to help us serve others in this way. Ask Him to give you wisdom, insight and understanding into the lives of others.

Our hearts are deceitfully wicked above all things (Jer. 17:7), so there is no telling what things might come up when we begin to plumb the depths of our hearts and the hearts of others. We should however love one another enough to pray for God to use us in each other’s lives to draw out what is in our hearts. And as we do this, we do it with great hope because we know that no matter what sins or fears are exposed, the love and the grace of God can cleanse them all and replace them with the promised fountain of Christ, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 14:4)

May we have in our lives people of understanding and may God make us those kind of people as well.