OH, MY HEART!

I saw my heart last week. Really! My cardiologist performed an echocardiogram, and I was allowed to watch the screen. So amazing! I was enthralled with what was happening on that little screen. Seeing the beats of the heart gave me much-needed assurance that leaks out at times.

The past 16 months with this heart condition have been nerve-racking, to say the least. When the pain occurs, fear arises. The more information I gather, the more documentation I read, and the more facts my doctor shares, the more my fears are relieved. Assurance dispels my fear.

While driving home from my doctor’s office, I was still pondering that little machine that gave me such hope. Then, God spoke. Here is what He reminded me.

God’s Spirit lives inside of that heart that was beating perfectly. He knows every single cell of my heart, both physically and spiritually. He has never had to wait on a cardiac ultrasound to see my heart.

He knows!

Why and how would God even care about my heart?

He created it!

But even though I was born with a healthy physical heart, there is a problem with it now. My spiritual heart had a problem from my birth but now it is healthy. You see, we are all born having no avenue available to connect with the One who created us because of sin. We are born wanting to take our hearts in our own selfish direction. If we continue in that selfish direction, we must pay the debt that we owe for our sinful choices. That price is death and eternal separation from the loving One who created us.

God, however, in His tremendous love for us, paved that avenue. He sent His only Son, Jesus, to completely pay the price for our sins by dying in our place. God has given us a gift that cancels our debt and that gift is free! All we have to do is believe in His wonderful Son, Jesus. That’s all. Nothing else. None of us have to die to pay our debt.

Once we do, the Spirit of God enters our hearts and lives there.

I did that! I have pledged my allegiance to Him, and He has given me eternal life. My heart will continue to beat forever. I have that assurance.

God also sees the state of my heart. There is no condition of my heart that I can hide from Him.

He sees every physical beat, but He also sees every spiritual pulse. His desire for me is to have a clean heart, living in obedience to Him because I have accepted His free gift and labeled myself as His follower. While living in the physical, earthly body He created for me, I will make mistakes. I will sin. I will have those dark corners of rebellion against God in my heart. God sees them. But, again, He has a way for me to clean out my heart. All I have to do is agree with Him about those dark corners, confess my sins to Him, and not go back down those rebellious paths again. God even gives me the strength and the faith in which to do this!

Why would I ever want to hurt my heart with disobedience?

The Spirit is living in my heart. My heart is His home. What wonderful assurance that I will never have to pay the debt of my sin!

May I seek each moment to make my heart a sparkling dwelling for Him trusting that He has planned every physical and spiritual beat of my heart.

As for my physical heart, I thank God for the medications which are helping and for every heartbeat He gives me…from now on.

“The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart triumphs, and with my song I shall thank Him.” Psalm 28:7