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