Brother, how are things in your heart?

"The story is told that the once famous Professor Tholuck of Halle used to visit the rooms of his students and press them with the question, 'Brother, how are things in your heart?' How do things stand with you yourself?--not with your ears, not with your head, not with your forensic ability, not with your industriousness (although all that is also appropriate to being a theologian). In biblical terms the question is precisely, 'How are things with your heart?' It is a question very properly addressed to every young and old theologian!" (1)

1. Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992) 83.