Apply Your Heart & Ears

Apply your heart to instruction
    and your ears to words of knowledge.

—Proverbs 23:12, New Catholic Bible

There’s a classic image an antique-looking train that’s so simple it’s painfully profound.

This train’s only three cars long.

Up front is a locomotive.

Then a coal car with a caboose behind it.

All three parts are labeled.

The train has Facts up front as the locomotive, with Faith being the coal car and Feelings bringing up the rear.

Getting them out of order can be a problem. The train cannot run with the caboose pulling it. Nor can it move along with the coal car as the driving force.

But I’ve tried living with them in both of those goofy arrangements! Trust me: you’re not gonna get far doing that.

Let’s review: Apply your heart…and your ears…to what again?