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We take our hearts for granted. Hidden beneath our ribcage, this two-fist size organ pumps almost 2000 gallons each day!  If our heart is functioning properly, we don’t think much about it. However, following a cardiologist appointment, my husband informed me that his doctor suspected a serious heart condition involving his bi-cuspid valve.  The doctor wanted my husband to undergo a medical procedure as soon as possible to determine what steps to take.

This situation led me to consider of our spiritual hearts. What is their condition? We are instructed in Proverbs 4:23 to watch over our hearts with all diligence because from the heart flows the springs of life.

For my husband, shortness of breath led him to seek counsel and begin to watch over his physical heart more diligently. For us, some symptoms that our hearts may not be healthy include:

• Not having a teachable spirit – comfortable with our knowledge of spiritual truth and God’s word without a desire to grow
• A critical and judgmental attitude; complaining
• Pride in victories and accomplishments forgetting any success ultimately comes from the hand of God
• Lack of love or desire to be involved with brothers and sisters in the Lord
• Weighed down by anxious thoughts
• God’s commands feel burdensome

Among his audiences, Jesus noted that many appear well on the outside yet have decay within. In the new covenant, God gives us a new heart, a heart of flesh to replace our heart of stone. But we are to guard this new heart against becoming calcified by subtle build up, day upon day.

Maybe now is an opportunity to let the great physician, Yahweh Rapha, examine our hearts for it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. Unfortunately, we are all ravaged by our sin-sick world so we display wisdom when we take pro-active measures to ensure our hearts continuing health.

P.S. My husband’s cardiologist found that while one valve is considerably smaller than it should be, there is no blockage or deterioration, so no surgery is needed!