In My Heart

I just took my pulse.

66 beats per minute.

Then, being a bit of a maths head, I started figuring…

That’s 3,960 beats per hour, and in a day my heart is pumping at least 95,000 times. So in a year, it beats in excess of 34 million times! And for me, at my age, my heart has pumped well over 1 billion times, with hopefully at least another billion to go.

What an amazing, complex, incredible system is the human body!

What an amazing muscle the heart is!

But we most often use the term ‘heart’ in a much broader sense.

We talk about a ‘change of heart’ or ‘a broken heart’ or a ‘kind-hearted’ person in a similar way.

Of course we’re not talking about the muscle with its ventricles and atriums and arteries pumping blood around our bodies when we use these terms, rather about our core being, the inner person. In some senses it’s about the ‘storeroom of emotions’. It’s about passion and decision making and feelings. When we talk about the heart this way, it’s not the mechanical part of the body, but the unseen, the things that make us who we are and make us behave the way we behave.

Jesus had many interesting things to say about people’s hearts – things like “A good person produces good deeds from a good heart, and an evil person produces evil deeds from an evil heart. Whatever is in your heart determines what you say.” And “Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be”. And again “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart”

When I visit the supermarket, I can select products that have a Heart Foundation tick on them which tells me that these things are good for my body, and for the health of my heart.

The message from Jesus is that the other type of ‘heart’, our inner being – well, that’s even more important to keep healthy.

How do we do that? Jesus said simply to follow him. To follow his teachings. To follow his example. And to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbour as yourself. The Apostle Paul advised one of his churches to ‘fix your thoughts on what is true and honourable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise’.

What are doing to keep your heart healthy?

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again

Why did Humpty, with his state of fragility, get up on the wall in the first place?

Maybe it was curiosity – he wanted to know what things were like on the other side of the wall?

Maybe all his mates were up on the wall, and he wanted to be part of the group?

Maybe Humpty was bored and looking for a thrill?

Maybe Humpty wanted to die?

Sadly, this little centuries old children’s rhyme describes many lives in the communities around us.

A curiosity with drugs, wondering what it’s like to feel high or euphoric or invincible, leads to destruction.

Wanting to fit in with the crowd, the old peer pressure, can lead to us making decisions and exhibiting behaviours that produce dire consequences.

Or people living without meaning or purpose engage in risky behaviour because they just want some excitement.

Then there are many who just give up on life, either through depression or sadness or feeling like the world would be better off without them.

Like the king’s horses and men, often our attempts to help them put their life back together again, when done in our own strength, is fruitless, useless. The eggshell of their lives is so badly broken apart that it seems impossible.

But there is one who can repair and restore the most damaged, broken person.

The one who came to give us life, in all its fullness, to give us hope, to give our lives purpose and meaning.

The Healer.

The Restorer.

Jesus.

And we are the King’s men, and women (rather than horses!). We are called to patrol the walls, to talk people down, and to apply this balm of Divine Love to the damaged and the broken.

Don’t give up on anyone. There is no one that Jesus cannot put back together again.

www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington

Tear It Down, Build It Up

I love seeing footage of when a large building is demolished. The explosives are strategically placed, and after a 10-1 countdown, someone presses the button and CRASH, down it all comes in a matter of seconds, and all that is left of a once tall, wide, strong structure is a pile of rubble.

Usually once the rubble is cleared, a new building will begin to be constructed in its place. This can take quite a lot of time, as new foundations are prepared, then the building process gets underway. The construction of the new structure can take months, even years.

Seconds to be destroyed, months and years to rebuild.

It’s the same with personal relationships.

In a matter of seconds, words are spoken or actions undertaken that may tear down and reduce to rubble what was once a strong, deep relationship.

In the Bible, in a letter called Romans, the author urges the readers to “do your part to live in peace with everyone, as much as possible” (Romans 12:18)

Reconciling broken relationships can take much time and effort, and often a scar or a sore point remains. It’s worth remembering how quickly the relationship can be broken in the first place, and acting always in accordance with the great value of that relationship, taking care with our words and actions, doing our part to live in peace.

The Bible also tells us that God wants to be in relationship with us, but that the words and actions of ours that contradict God’s nature have caused the relationship to be broken. But because God is a God of love, he sent His Son Jesus on a mission to reconcile us with Him, through forgiveness of our wrong actions and harmful words.

Accepting that through the death and resurrection of Jesus we have forgiveness, for free, restores us into relationship with God.

And that doesn’t take months or years to be rebuilt, it just takes a matter of seconds. It’s just a prayer away.

@lane_colin
www.salvationarmy.org.au/mornington