When Our Hearts Speak To Us

We all know the feeling.

We sit in the warmth of a Summer’s night and watch the setting sun. With us is a loved one. Somehow, in some mysterious way, our experience of the beauty of that fleeting moment is intensified to a greater degree than before when we share that experience.

It’s the feeling of wanting to share an experience with another. Its the strangeness of knowing that we’re not meant to be alone.

“Look at that!” we say. “Isn’t that beautiful?” we ask. We can’t help it. In sharing our experience of the wonder of the setting sun, we speak to one another. We vocalise our experience of nature’s beauty. Somehow, when we do this — when we vocalise our experiences to a loved one — it is as though the enjoyment is more complete.

With a loved one, the experience is deeper. We want to share our wonder.

I wonder whether this is actually the case when we are alone, too. Perhaps, when apparently alone, the moment of wonder we experience is the vocalisation of our heart in faint and spontaneous praise, as we acknowledge the invisible presence of an Other. Our hearts, at experience of the beauty of the world, jolt us awake to the possibility that we are not actually alone afterall. Perhaps when we think we marvel alone we actually share that moment with Somebody.

Even when alone, there is speech. Our heart is speaking to us. Our heart is telling us that we are not alone; that there is a reason.

Does this sound far-fetched? Maybe, and maybe not. By nature of being made in God’s image — so the Bible says — we are able to recognise the Creator, even if only dimly, in the created world around us.

Psalm 19 tells us this:

“The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.”

We see the world, we experience awe and wonder, and we wonder if there is Something, or Someone, who is truly Awesome and Wonderful. Perhaps the goodness we see in the world points us to the Good One — to God.