All of us have to face our unruly, disordered spiritual hearts
that are characterized by a host of disordered loves.

A disordered heart
loves the wrong things
to a wrong degree
in a wrong way
with a wrong love.

“What does it mean to have a well-ordered heart?”

To have a well-ordered heart
is to love the right thing
to the right degree
in the right way
with the right kind of love.

John Ortberg puts it like this,
“When the heart is well-ordered,
we are not only increasingly free from sin,
but also increasingly free from the desire to sin.”

Rather than sin attracting us,
we increasingly find it repulsive,
unattractive, and unappealing.
“Why would we want to do that?”
we ask ourselves,
a question that naturally arises from a well-ordered heart.

Disordered heart, disordered will, disordered choices.
Ordered heart, ordered will, ordered choices.
The wondrous, grace-empowered result of a well-ordered heart
is the flourishing of love.

• Adapted from Christopher Hall’s, Living Wisely with the Church Fathers, pp. 220–221.