Give Your Heart to God

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein  |  July 5, 2016

My son, give me your heart
     and let your eyes delight in my ways. — Proverbs 23:26

People can do amazing things.

When we were kids, we could memorize all the facts about our favorite baseball players — how many home runs he hit; his batting average, his RBIs. But when it came to memorizing the presidents of the United States or other details in U.S. history, which most of us found boring in the fifth grade, we weren’t quite as successful and could barely remember enough to get a good grade on our tests.

Yet when it came to things we cared deeply about – like the lyrics to our favorite songs or details about cars we thought were cool — we could remember almost anything. What was the difference? Our hearts were in it.

Along the same lines, every few years, we hear stories of mothers saving their children in almost superhuman ways — lifting cars or fighting off fierce animals. These stories and others like them have been documented. The only explanation besides Divine assistance is the mother’s absolute determination to save the child she loves.

When our hearts are attached to something, there is no telling what we might accomplish.

This is what makes the following piece of advice in Proverbs so powerful: “My son, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways.” Literally translated from the original Hebrew, the verse reads ” . . . give me your heart and your eyes will (automatically) follow my ways.”

In other words, when we give our hearts over to God, we are able to follow Him automatically and more powerfully. We are able to accomplish things for God’s glory and overcome temptations that might have otherwise been impossible.

The Jewish sages teach, “The way that a person wants to go, God will help him go there.” So if a person loves God with all his heart and wants to serve Him, God will help him to do so. We are where our heart is.

For this reason, it is so important to love God with all our heart and all our soul. Still, this isn’t always easy to do. Perhaps we are going through a difficult time in our lives, or maybe we are distracted by the material aspects of the world. How can we motivate ourselves to love God powerfully and continually?

The answer is to seek out inspiration. Whether it’s an inspiring spiritual leader or a book, a walk in nature or meditation, we must find someone or something that inspires our love for God.

Let’s get in the habit of filling ourselves up with daily inspiration. Give your heart over fully to God, no holds barred. When we do, we will see that we can do things we thought we couldn’t do and accomplish goals we thought unattainable. Nothing is impossible when we’ve given our hearts to God.