A Pure Heart

Robert Benham McGraw was born to an Indiana farm family on October 12, 1948, and he was raised an only child. Bobby Ben, as everyone called him, loved life, was the friendliest person in the room, formed lasting relationships no matter where he went, and was born with Down Syndrome. Bobby Ben was a faithful member of the Ben Davis Creek Christian Church in Rush County, Indiana for his entire life, graduating to Heaven in January 2017. 

Bobby Ben was such a fixture in our congregation that a Sunday morning without him present would have been noticed by everyone immediately. He was faithful to attend any occasion the church doors were open. After he and his mother relocated to a nursing home in her final years, Bobby continued to travel the eight miles from town to his country church even after his mother’s health no longer permitted her to accompany him. 

Bobby’s parents were told from the beginning he would never be able to learn like other children or thrive in the same manner or even have the same prospect of good health. There were many ways they were discouraged from having any hopes or dreams for their son. It was 1948, and there were facilities for children like him. Nonetheless, Bob Sr. and Marian brought their son home, dismissing all the foreboding warnings, and embarked on pouring themselves into their only child in a manner they saw fit. Sure, he was a late bloomer, not walking until he was two years old, and speech delayed compared to standard development charts. There were challenges at every stage of his life. His parents incorporated him into all the aspects of their lives that were most important anyway, which was God and church, family, and community. 

As life with Bobby Ben presented obstacles, his parents found solutions. That included filling the void that existed for adults with similar functional limitations to be productive contributing members of society. They established the McGraw Center in 1975 to meet these needs, and all these years later, one small local solution has expanded to multiple cities operating under the name Shares Inc. and provides living skills instruction, job coaching, and employment to a host of adults like Bobby Ben. 

Bobby thought of himself as a cowboy. His parents had traveled with him all over the United States, and the West really stoked Bobby’s passions. He always dressed up for church each Sunday in dress pants and a button-down shirt and suit jacket, but he finished his visual presentation with a cowboy hat, string tie, and often a cowboy belt buckle. He was never able to read orally but demonstrated some ability to follow along with what was being read. In fact, his Bibles have many highlights that he placed there during Sunday School lessons and Bible studies. 

Bobby was patriotic. His patriotism welled up and out from the deepest parts of who he was. On the Sundays we sang The Battle Hymn of Republic and similarly patriotic hymns, it was ordinary for him to place his hand over his heart and even shed tears. He went forward every Sunday with church leaders and helped pass the offering plate. He led prayer among the body of believers faithfully every Sunday. We always knew what was on Bobby’s heart because he spoke of it in his prayers. It may have been a reference to his favorite sports teams, the Reds or Purdue, or it may have been in reference to one of his favorite western singers. It may have been about one of us sitting in church that Sunday. It was the purest and truest prayers you’d ever hear. We miss Bobby Ben. 

All of this reminiscing about Bobby Ben truly captures the truth about a few biblical essentials. God is able to establish Himself in anyone who welcomes Him in. It is astounding to think a person who will never have the mental capacity to do math or read still can understand who God is and can allow Him to be rooted in the heart. Also, the purity of the heart truly is the lens to seeing God. What an amazing example Bobby turns out to be for Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (NIV used throughout). 

This is such a loaded verse, and it deepens understanding when examining the original language. The Greek word for blessed (makarios) describes a state of spiritual well-being but is also understood to mean having God’s favor. Luke 1:30 finds an angel of the Lord telling Mary, the mother of Jesus, to not be afraid because she has God’s favor. In verse 45 of the same chapter, the Word says, “Blessed (makarios) is she who believed God would fulfill His promises to her!” The idea of the word “blessed” in Matthew 5 infers not just a state of being but a standing with God. It is an intimacy with our Heavenly Father. Verse 8 says this exists because of a pure heart. 

Examining the Greek for the word “pure” also broadens perspective. The use of the Greek word katharos in the New Testament has been translated “clean,” “pure,” and “clear.” Interchangeably, the pure heart referenced in Matthew 5:8 could also be imagined as the “clean heart” or “clear heart.” I like to think of the latter as clarity of the heart. Diamond sellers often refer to the four C’s when marketing the gems: cut, color, carat, and clarity. The first three C’s pertain to preferences, but the last C, clarity, is about quality and is the key to determining its value. It is the state of the gem that is not the result of the work of humans but, in fact, what was formed in the wonders of God’s earth. In the case of clarity of the heart in Matthew 5:8, we are talking about what was formed through engagement with God. This pure heart has nothing to do with what one knows about right and wrong but, in fact, the condition of the heart being free of sin’s blemishes and cloudiness. 

Finally, a good look at the Greek word for “see” in Matthew 5:8 is equally enlightening. The original language uses the word horao, which is not just about the visual experience of seeing God but also refers to perception and knowledge. Horao’s definition includes “understanding with the mind” and in the New Testament refers to a deeper realization of spiritual truths. Put in more deeply expressed language, this verse might read, “Those with true clarity of the heart are in God’s favor, for they have deeper understanding of Him.” Let us remember once again Bobby Ben McGraw. There he was among us on a weekly basis with such clarity of heart. It is astounding what he must have known about his heavenly Father! The reality of Matthew 5:8 is not stipulated on knowledge, information, talent, or even intelligence. It is all constructed around the way we tend to the heart — how we protect it from the input of sin, how we draw from God’s strength to purge out the sin we know has taken root, and how we discover through knowing God the sin that dwells there that we did not recognize or understand. 

Here are a few bonus verses that marry well with this look at Matthew 5:8. “Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8). Also, Psalm 15:1-2: “Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart.” Psalm 24 begins the chapter with the declaration the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, but verse 3 and following refers to similar poetry as in the fifteenth chapter: “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? The one who has had clean hands and a pure heart.” 

In 1995, we took the youth group from our church on a mission trip to work with Apache and Navajo Indians in Arizona. Robert McGraw Sr. had been gone for a number of years by then and Marian was, at the time, 88 years old. She wished for her son to have one more trip out west, so the youth group cast their arms wide open and welcomed Marian and Bobby Ben onboard. We shared such memorable moments with both of them and reflect on those memories often! Bobby was in his element back in the West where the cowboy in him was riding high through the whole trip. I recall the day we took the group to see the Grand Canyon. We had just parked the vans and surfaced into the fresh air and sunshine when Bobby came over and took my hand. He said he wanted me to go with him to the gift shop, so we put the canyon on hold for a quick trip to the visitor’s center. Leading me by hand the whole way, we came to a stop in the middle of the store’s nicest things. He got out his billfold and then asked me if I would help him buy a gift for his special friend back home at Shares Inc. Bobby and his mother were so thrilled to see the canyon for the last time, but Bobby’s thoughtfulness of someone back home came first. Such purity. 

When Bobby was born with Down Syndrome in the 1940s, the average life expectancy was 12 years. Today, it is 60 years. Bobby passed away in January 2017 at the age of 68. Those with true clarity of the heart are in God’s favor, for they have deeper understanding of Him. Men who had grown up with Bobby whose paths had taken them into farming, business, and banking served as his pallbearers, and they each wore one of Bobby’s string ties as they lowered his earthly body to its final resting place. That cowboy is indeed dwelling on the holy mountain of God where he sees with his eyes what his heart had seen long before his arrival to the summit. What magnificence is to be found in a pure heart! 

Jennifer Bullard is a self-employed landscape photographer from Rush County, Indiana.