With All Your Heart: Orienting Your Mind, Desires, and Will toward Christ

by A. Craig Troxel

We could illustrate this point from Greek mythology.10 The sirens used their mesmerizing song to lure sailors to their deaths on the rocky shore. Two famous Greeks were able to sail by them successfully. One was Odysseus, who stopped up the ears of his men with wax and then had them bind him to the ship’s mast. This way (most of) his men were safe, and he was able to hear the siren’s sweet song with relatively little harm (Odysseus did lose six men!).11 The other was the legendary Orpheus—the greatest of all Greek musicians and poets—who was sailing with Jason and the Argonauts. As the Argonauts approached the sirens and began to hear the siren’s voices drift across the water, Orpheus took out his lyre and began to sing a more charming melody to the men. His sweeter music drowned out the sirens’ beguiling song.12 Orpheus, not Odysseus, represents the success we want. We can pass some tests by restricting our bodies (be tied to a mast) or limiting our access to temptation (fill our ears with wax). But in the end, the holy desires of our heart must arise and conquer. The desire to love and follow Christ must be a sweeter song to us than the music of the world and our flesh.