Above all else, guard your heart because everything else flows from it. Proverbs 4:23
I’ve heard it said that if you want to see an example of God’s love, look to the human heart. The heart is the most unselfish organ in the human body. On a regular day, your heart beats 100,000 times and pumps 2000 gallons of blood through your body. Although it is only as big as your fist, it has the job of pushing blood to 60,000 miles of blood vessels that feed your organs and body. It never takes anything from another part of the body to survive, but functions by itself by siphoning off enough blood to sustain itself as it pushes the blood through the arteries.
The heart is also courageous. It will take abuse from lifestyles that are not acceptable, diseases that affect it, infections and, with care, keep on beating until it wears out.
The heart is faithful as well. If you care for it, it will serve you well all of your life. It’s an organ that just does what it’s supposed to do and never asks questions or seeks reward.
What of those whose heart is attacked by infection, disease, or other maladies and struggles through no human fault? There are doctors whose sole purpose is to save those lives through by pass, stints, or transplants. This is where the unselfishness, courage and faithfulness of the heart and the unselfishness, courage and faithfulness of others enters in.
We know a family whose baby son’s heart was attacked with infection, and his only hope was a transplant. I don’t think there is anything dearer to God’s heart than a child. Through God’s grace, a family who had lost their small son, donated their child’s heart so that our friend’s son might live. Like the heart itself, an unselfish act. It is amazing that the heart of one can stay alive long enough to bring new life to another. One unselfish heart beating in the chest of another, God’s perfect design of the heart.
In this day and time, Christians are fighting for the hearts of men and women. Hearts seem to be hardened toward Christianity and the saving grace that is offered if we only receive it. There are selfish hearts out there who want only to care for themselves with no thought of helping others. It’s a mystery to me why we all can’t just let God mend hearts of all kinds and put us on the path to complete healing.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26
The picture is of little Davis, the happy, healthy recipient of God’s blessing in the form of a new heart!