Even though I know this, I too often ignore the heart in my own teaching. It seems too much to expect hearts to change, so I go for what’s easy. I fall back on lesser motivations that are proven to bring short-term, external results. After all, I can get a fourth grader to take just three crackers. And because I’m good at persuasion, I might even convince a teenager to do something big—like stop lying to his parents or put off having sex. I can stop the evil act—for a while. So I choose to do that, instead of deal with the evil heart from which those acts come.
