Pastor's Blog: A Matter of the Heart
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As many of you know, when heart patients are being examined, one of the first things they are given is a stress test. Never has anything been more aptly named. I know this from personal experience. Back when I turned 60, as a part of my routine annual physical, my doctor prescribed such a test for me. I went into it thinking, “Piece of cake; I’m in great shape.” I came out of it thinking, “I had no idea they were going to try to kill me.” The stress test does exactly what it says – it is designed to see how much stress a person’s heart can endure. That’s the only way physicians can determine the condition of a patient’s heart.
I would contend that we’re in something of a cultural stress test today. You don’t have to look far to see the pressures that are being exerted on all of us – financial pressures, vocational pressures, relational pressures, and, of course, social pressures. At times it has seemed like someone has put our collective kettle on boil and we have felt the need to let off a lot of steam.
So, how are we as people of faith to respond to such a season? I am convinced that the best way is to lean into the strength that our faith in God provides. Left to our own devices we run out of gas pretty quickly. And it matters not what age of believer we’re talking about. All of us have limitations and sooner or later life will happen, and we will be forced to bump up against them. But when we trust our circumstances to God, we invite into the equation a variable that can solve even the most vexing of problems.
Look at Scripture and see how many times God’s Word refers to the heart. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12). I could go on and on. But the point to remember as we read all of these passages of Scripture is that the Bible views the heart as the center of our entire being, not just the seat of our emotions. Therefore, when God is at the center, we have an inexhaustible source of help that we can depend upon in the face of every challenge, every threat, and every difficulty.
It seems like each day brings yet another occurrence of something that causes us to say to ourselves (and sometimes to others), “I just don’t know if my heart can take much more of this.” The truth of the matter is that it can’t. But God’s heart can, which is why we must love Him with all of ours, just as Jesus commanded that we do.
We may think that we’re going through today is something unusual, but when you look back at past periods, it clearly is not. Each age faces its own perils and is made aware of its own limitations. And in each age there are folk of faith who come to discover that God is with them every step of the way and they can find their hope in him.
One of those faithful souls was Augustine, the bishop of Hippo in North Africa, who in the late fourth century wrote his famous Confessions, an account of his own faith journey, in which he penned the famous line: “Our heart is restless, until it rests in You.” If that, in fact, is a good diagnosis of the spiritual state of your heart this day, then now you know the cure. The call to “take heart” is more than a mere placebo; it is a way forward into an uncertain and unsettling future that assures you that with God’s help, you will never fail any test that comes upon you along the way.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).