Keep the Heart

“Your heart rate is too low,” my doctor said.

At a recent physical, my doctor did a baseline EKG and discovered that my resting heart rate was far below normal. I then found myself searching for a cardiologist for the first time in my nearly forty-eight years of life. A week later, I was given a heart rate monitor to wear. The contraption was glued to my chest and I wore it 24/7 for a week. I hope to soon learn the results.

As we well know—whether we passed 9th grade biology or not—the heart is what keeps us alive. This muscle pumps blood through the circulatory system to the rest of the body and beats about 100,000 times a day. It rests in the center of our chest and is central to our life and wellness.

I don’t know about you, but I rarely think about the work my heart is doing and until I hit forty, I hardly thought about what it needed to remain healthy. But our heart does need monitoring and care. That’s why the doctor listens to it at each visit and urges patients to stay away from fried and fatty foods.

The Bible talks about the heart a lot. Not so much our physical heart—though we ought to steward its care. Rather, the Bible talks about our spiritual heart, what lies at the center of who we are. Contrary to cheesy romance movies, when the Bible talks about our heart, it doesn’t mean the source of our feelings as opposed to our thoughts, as in “just follow your heart.” Rather, the Bible uses the word “heart” to refer to the core of who we are and it includes our thoughts, feelings, desires, choices, and will. All these act on and influence the other, with our desires often leading the way.

The Bible also teaches us that the heart is fallen in sin—a condition which began with the fall of man in Genesis 3. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). It is not our circumstances or what other people do or say that is the source of our problems. As Jesus taught, it is not what is outside of us that defiles us, but what is in us. “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:20-23). James teaches that disordered desires of the heart cause our conflicts in life, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1).

Because of this, Proverbs urges us to guard the heart, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (4:23). The Hebrew word for “keep” is the same word used to talk about the watchmen who stand watch on the walls of the city, alert and ready to respond when enemies come near. The word is used to mean preserving or maintaining as well as protecting and guarding.[1] When it comes to keeping our heart, we need to both preserve and protect it.

To preserve our heart, we keep it healthy. We nurture it and tend to it by feasting on the Word of God. We allow the Word to examine and try our hearts. God gave us His Spirit who uses the Word to sanctify our hearts—to change and transform us from the inside out. The more we study and meditate on the Word, the more we see the true state of our hearts. We see those things which don’t belong, the sins which we so easily ignore. We see the pride, self-righteousness, and selfishness. We the see ways in which we fail to love God with all heart, our disordered desires and idols we worship—those things we look to for hope and life and meaning apart from God. As the Spirit uses the Word to convict us and show us our sin, we look to his grace to remind us of the gospel and who we are in Christ. We confess and repent and rejoice in the gospel which saves us. The Spirit then helps us remove those idols we worship and grow in greater love and knowledge of our Savior.

We also must guard our heart, keeping watch for those things which tempt, deceive, and draw us into sin, including ungodly influences from the world and temptations from evil. As Ephesians 6 reminds us, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (v.12). We wear our Ephesians 6 armaments into battle each day, aware that arrows are flying at us left and right. And we follow Jesus’ command to watch and pray (Matthew 26:41).

In all our heart-keeping, we must never forget that God is the ultimate heart-keeper for nothing can separate us from his great love for us in Christ. And more, he has provided the means of grace for us to preserve and protect our heart. We have the gift of the Spirit who lives within us, the very power of God—the same power who raised Christ from the dead. We have all the promises of God fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We have access to the throne of grace. We have the very Word of God to read, study, and meditate upon. And we have the community of faith which walks beside us in the journey.

No doubt, I am very aware of my physical heart these days and the need to monitor it. To keep and protect it. Even as I do so, I know it has an expiration date. However, my spiritual heart does not. How much more ought I to keep it? For it is my life. “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (4:23).

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

[1] With All Your Heart by A. Craig Troxel, p. 155.

The Importance of Struggle

When my kids were young, we spent our days doing science experiments. We studied everything from animals to geology, plants to electronics. Unfortunately for me, some of our experiments included bugs and other like creatures—not a personal favorite! They once had a ant farm where we received an envelope in the mail filled with ants and had to somehow get them all inside a clear plastic rectangular box where they would proceed to tunnel through thick gel while we watched them do their ant thing. Another time, my son decided he wanted to watch the life cycle of meal worms—these we kept in the garage, because, ew! The only one I tolerated was when we studied butterflies.

Like the ant farm, this kit sent caterpillars in the mail that we then had to feed and leave in a mesh enclosure and wait for them to grow, molt, form a chrysalis, and then change into butterflies before setting them free. It’s a fascinating process and one which you are likely familiar. One interesting fact is that when they are about to emerge from the chrysalis, they release a chemical that strengthens their wings so they can fly. They will move inside the chrysalis, pumping this chemical throughout their wings. They have to remain hanging upside down during this process. If they release from the chrysalis early, before this process is complete, their wings will be useless. This means the struggle is important and necessary for their survival as butterflies.

As a rule, we as humans tend to shy away from struggle. We want growth without the growing pains. We want strength without the work. We want God to make us holy immediately rather than have us go through the refiner’s fire. We want life to go smoothly, without hardship or trial. And we want that for our loved ones as well. But the Bible tells us that is not how God works in our lives. It is through struggle that we are transformed. As Paul wrote in Romans 5: “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (vv.3-4). Hebrews 12 teaches that God disciplines or trains us in order to make us holy and the process is for our good: “he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (vv.10-11).

The Reformer, Martin Luther, describes the Christian life as one of growth. It is a process: “This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.” God is preparing us now for eternity. He is stripping away all that is impure within us. He is reshaping us into the image of his Son. And one day, when we stand in his presence, that process will be complete. We will be whole and healed. We will be glorified.

When we watched our butterflies do their work to leave their chrysalis, had we interfered in some way, or tried to quicken the process, we would have kept them from transforming into butterflies. They needed to struggle. And when they finished the struggle and began flying around the little mesh tent, we brought them outside, unzipped the door, and set them free.

We are all in process. God is doing a good work in us. May we not resist the struggle.

Photo by Dominik Rešek on Unsplash

When What is Broken is Made Whole

Those who know me, know how much I love antiques. I love exploring those big shops filled with individually run booths with displays of items from yester year. I especially enjoy looking at things that people used in everyday life, imagining who used it, and what their life was like.

One year, after a day spent exploring antique shops, I purchased an old secretary desk. I loved the pull down front, complete with a lock and skeleton key. The space for writing was covered in faded red leather, and behind it stood slots and cubbies waiting to be filled with stationery supplies. It was built of solid honey stained oak and I pictured a woman from a hundred years before, sitting at the desk, writing a letter to a loved one far away.

I placed the secretary in the back of my van and headed home. The problem was (and still is!), I’m not the packer in my family and didn’t think about securing it in any way. The first bump I drove over made the desk toppled over. As soon as I heard a thud, I had a bad feeling. When I arrived home and opened the back of the van, I discovered the desk had fallen apart in pieces. Many pieces.

I was crushed.

My husband and father-in-law took charge. They applied wood glue to all the pieces and held them together with clamps. A couple days later, the desk stood there as it had before. You couldn’t tell it had fallen apart.

That was almost fifteen years ago and the desk still stands tall in my kitchen. I often look at it and remember the sorrow I felt when it broke apart and the joy I felt when it was mended. It reminds me of my own life and how the Lord has healed my own brokenness. It reminds me that even when things are at their worst, there is still hope. Because God is a God of redemption. He takes what is broken and makes it whole. I can attest to this in my own life and have witnessed it in the lives of others.

But the greatest testimony of this is that of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Imagine what the disciples must have thought and felt when they saw Jesus crucified. I imagine not only the great grief but also the despair and hopelessness. How could anything come of Jesus’ death? But then the resurrection! They saw Jesus’ broken body healed. They talked and walked and ate with him. And because Jesus conquered death and overcame the grave, he now sits at the right hand of God. He reigns on high and even now is at work to make all things new. “And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5).

Jesus defeated sin and death. And by his perfect life lived for us and his sacrificial death in our place, he redeems and restores us. He cleanses us from sin. He brings us back into right relationship with God. He makes all that is broken whole. Indeed, those who are in Christ are new creations (Rom. 6:11, 2 Cor. 5:17). The Spirit is at work in us even now, transforming us into the image of Christ. And one day, that work will be complete. What glorious hope we have in Christ!

Life often seems like my broken secretary desk, fallen apart into too many pieces to count. But God can do even more than simply glue the pieces of life back together; he gives new life. He transforms.

Have you seen God take what is broken and make it new?

Photo by Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash

A Bigger Perspective

I’ve always enjoyed art— wandering through galleries and marveling at the way people use color and light to express themselves. I enjoy learning about an artist’s chosen medium, their creative process, and their technique. I’m not an artist myself, though I have taken a few classes because I desire to learn how to express myself creatively.

During a recent family vacation, I took a painting class. We sat in a room, surrounded by glass on all four sides. The Rocky Mountains stretched out before us, its jagged peaks covered with fresh snow, the hills below bright green from recent rainfall. The sky was wide and dappled with clouds, the pond behind the building teeming with birds. It was an ideal spot in which to spend the afternoon with a blank canvas.

The instructor placed his own painting on an easel and invited us to paint something similar. It was a mountain scene and looked like many of the places our family had recently hiked, filled with desert shrubs and rocky cliffs. He walked us through it, teaching us how to paint shapes and mix colors. Not everyone in the class was an artist, so I was happy to learn that I wasn’t the only one who did not know what they were doing!

As I painted, I grew increasingly disappointed. All I could see were lines and shapes. My shrubs looked like large eggs sprouting ears. My mountain looked like a misshapen blob—far from anything majestic. I’d add lines as he instructed, but they didn’t look anything like cliffs or crevasses.

The instructor walked around the room, giving us individual help and guidance. Several times he said, “Every once in a while get out of your chair and step back from the painting and you’ll see it from a different perspective. Up close, it won’t look like anything. But a few feet away it will all make sense.”

I never got up to see it from afar but kept mixing colors and painting away, all the while feeling discouraged that the image I had in my mind was not transferring to the canvas. It wasn’t until I brought it back to our cabin and propped it up on the window sill and looked at it from afar that I saw it as he said. All the lines and shapes that looked so strange up close looked so different a few steps away. My bushes actually did look like bushes! The red rock mountain looked like it had dimension and depth. There were cliffs and crevasses after all. It looked more like a place I had hiked and explored than the smearing of colors it looked like up close.

My painting experience reminded me of how I often view my life—of how I see the picture God is painting. I often only see the trial and hardship I am in at the moment. The brush strokes seem wild and unhinged. The colors look like they’ve been splattered on the canvas with no thought or intention. The shapes don’t resemble anything that makes sense. I feel discouraged and can’t imagine that what I am experiencing has any purpose. How can something so messy and confusing transform into something beautiful? And sometimes, when the trial is especially intense and hard, all I can see are dark brush strokes in one corner of the canvas.

And I wonder, is this all I’ll ever see?

Stepping back from my painting was a reminder that in my own life all I see is one small section of the picture God is painting. I need to step back from time to time to see it from a different angle. To get a new perspective. To see my life in light of the greater work of redemption God is doing in my life. To see it in light of eternity.

While it’s true that I won’t see the full and complete picture until God is finished, but I can get glimpses of it in Scripture. Like an architect’s rendering of a house before it is built, I have God’s promises of what his finished product will look like. I even know other people in my life whose pictures are a bit more developed than mine and I can see the similar work God has done in their lives. But even more, as I study the Bible, I can see the image of Christ that he’s transforming me into. And rather than despair over the seemingly meaningless brush strokes before me, I can turn and instead watch the master Artist at work, shaping my life to image that of Christ.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get so caught up in looking at the shapes and strokes right before me that I get discouraged. I fear that my life will never take shape or make sense. That’s when I need a bigger perspective. That’s when I need to step back and view my life through the big picture of God’s work of redemption. I need to look at and take in what he’s completed so far and marvel at how far my life has come. But most importantly, I need to remember it’s not yet finished and when it is, it will be even more breathtaking and glorious than anything I’ve ever seen.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

A Responsibility to Remember

As a Gen-Xer, I grew up hearing stories about the Great Depression and WWII. I learned of the hardships and sufferings my great-grandparents and grandparents endured. I listened to accounts of life in poverty—of empty bellies and too tight shoes, of leaving school in the eighth grade to support the family, of relational brokenness, neglect, and abandonment. I heard the stories of war and saw its decades long impact, especially the emotional scars that lingered far after all the the physical ones healed.

In all these stories, I heard whispers of grace. I saw how the Lord was faithful. I could trace his grace throughout the generations of my family, bringing hope and redemption in the midst of brokenness.

In Deuteronomy 11, Moses prepares God’s people for entering the Promised Land. He calls them to obey God and his commands. And he calls them to remember all God has done. But he doesn’t call on just anyone. He calls on specific people: those who remember what God had done for them in delivering them out of Egypt and bringing them through the desert. He calls on those who experienced the Lord’s discipline firsthand. He calls on those who witnessed God’s faithfulness to tell the younger generations of God’s great work among them.

“And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed them to this day, and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place…For your eyes have seen all the great work of the LORD that he did” (Deut. 11:2-5, 7).

We also have a responsibility to remember who God is and what he has done. Further, we have a responsibility to pass on that testimony to those behind us, to share the stories of God’s grace at work in our lives.

Moses continues, telling God’s people that they are to teach their children about God, about his character, his works, and his ways. They are to teach them all God has taught them, at all times and in all places. They are to instruct their children in the ways of the Lord.

For Israel, that meant passing on the redemption story of the Exodus. It meant teaching their children about God’s law and his commands. It meant cautioning them with the consequences of what happened during their desert wanderings, of the discipline they received, and of the punishment several families faced in Numbers 16. They were to learn of the covenant God made with his people, and of its accompanying blessings and curses. They were to hear and understand their story and legacy, the special call that made them a people, a family of God.

On this side of the cross, we as parents— we as spiritual guardians of the testimony, we as those who have witnessed the mighty acts of God—have a responsibility to remember. I grew up wondering why my grandparents always talked about the past. They were always remembering. Now that I am older, I understand a bit more about remembrance. If we fail to remember God’s past deliverance, we won’t trust him in the present. This happened all too often in Israel’s history. They quickly forgot God’s faithfulness and turned instead to false gods and counterfeit saviors. Remembrance keeps our gaze fixed on who God is and what he has done. It gives us a holy perspective.

But we don’t remember these stories to keep them to ourselves. We have an important call to share what we have seen and experienced with those behind us. To urge on our children, grandchildren, younger men and women, and those we teach and mentor, in the faith. To encourage them with the ways God has answered prayer. To equip them with gospel-filled stories of how God met people in their suffering with his strength and deliverance. To exhort them with truth in the face of falsehood. To help shape their identity, meaning, and purpose around the grand story of redemption: of a people beloved before time began and bought at a very great price.

No matter what age and stage we are in, we need to be around those who take their responsibility to remember seriously. The older I get, the more I need to hear from those ahead of me how the Lord has carried them all these years. We all have a responsibility to remember. Who are you sharing your stories with?

Investing in Spiritual Health

In my younger years, I often took my health for granted. Oh, I checked in with a doctor at least once a year and if I was really sick, I sought medical treatment. But I generally gave little thought to my health, other than going to the gym and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables.

But the older I get, the more I’ve focused my time and energies on maintaining good health. The more I find myself doing things to maintain the health that I have. The more my supplements have increased. The more time I spend at the doctor.

I see my chiropractor each month for chronic back problems and do stretching exercises each morning to prevent back pain. I see my dermatologist for a yearly skin check and use various creams and lotions each day to protect my skin from the sun. I get an allergy shot each month, regularly dust my house, and take medication as needed to prevent allergic reactions and asthma attacks. Not to mention annual blood work and other tests to monitor my health for any problems.

As one who only goes to the doctor when he is sick, my husband teases me for all these preventative measures. But I’ve learned the hard way that prevention is the best medicine. If I stop stretching my back each morning, I’ll soon find myself whimpering in pain. If I don’t take efforts to protect my skin, I’ll soon myself needing spots biopsied or removed—especially after all those years of soaking in the Florida sun!

I know I’m not alone in the pursuit of good health. Every year around this time we are bombarded with health and wellness ads. We are invited to invest in new exercise equipment, diet programs, and supplements. And to good effect: Americans spend over $4 trillion a year on health and wellness, not to mention all that we spend on medical treatment and prescriptions.

I looked at my calendar recently and saw several yearly check up appointments lined up in a row. As I thought about the time I invest in maintaining my health, I was convicted about my spiritual health.

Do I invest just as much time, effort, and attention to my relationship with God?

If I commit to my physical health in this way, should I not also commit even more to my spiritual health?

And what would it look like if I did?

The Apostle Paul wrote: “for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:8). The time and money we invest in our physical health does have value. It is good to take care of the body God gave us. But such an investment is limited to just this life. The investment we make in godliness, in our spiritual growth, has eternal value. It pays dividends that will last forever.

What does it look like to investment in our spiritual health and growth? It’s not something elaborate or complicated. It’s doesn’t necessitate new inventions or technology. While it does take time, it doesn’t consume time we don’t already have. The method is the same as it was from the start: the means of grace. Prayer. Bible study. Worship. Communion. Fellowship with the Saints. God provides these means to strengthen us in our faith. He uses them to feed and nurture our souls. He uses them to change and transform us into the image of his Son. While commitment to a certain diet or exercise regimen may or may not produce the outcome we desire, commitment to pursuing the means of grace will bear fruit in our lives.

Paul also wrote, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:24-27). Our pursuits to grow in holiness should be intentional, purposeful. We don’t want these pursuits to be aimless; they should push us forward to the goal. Further, Paul urges self-discipline in our appetites and passions—our sin nature— so that they don’t get us off track. This means the pursuit of spiritual health is not for the lazy. It takes work and effort. Our sin nature will want us to slack off and find reasons not to pray or study God’s word. It will find excuses for us not to attend church and worship our Savior. This is why Paul says we must “run that you may attain it” or as the NLT puts it, “run to win!”

The good news is that our efforts to pursue spiritual health and growth are not left to us alone. As Paul wrote elsewhere, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). It is God who ensures that we grow in the knowledge of him. He makes certain we have what we need to live for him (2 Pet. 1:3). He guarantees we finish the race. “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). Praise him for this grace at work in our lives!

As we invest in our physical health at the start of this new year, may not forsake our spiritual health. May we run the race of faith to win the prize of Jesus Christ.