What a fascinating, marvelous, miraculous creation is the heart! Its muscular right and left chambers continuously pump blood without reminder, as its various valves and vessels skillfully circulate that life-giving fluid. But although it has many parts, the heart functions as a whole, or not at all.

When things go wrong with our physical hearts, they must either be repaired…or replaced. Although some diseased or malfunctioning organs (like a spleen or an appendix) may simply be removed, the heart must stay. And while other ailing parts may be cut away (so that we make-do with only a fraction of them) a man’s heart cannot be divided and remain viable.

Years ago, working on the administrative staff of a large teaching hospital, I was afforded the opportunity to view open heart surgery from the domed observatory over one busy OR. I will probably never do so again, but I’m glad to have had that perspective at least once.

What I learned is this: heart surgery is messy and brutal. And the human body really is fearfully and wonderfully made: not only can it survive such a barbaric invasion…it can actually be healed by it.

As amazing and intricate as a surgeon’s work on the human heart may appear, God’s work goes deeper still. The surgeon can locate damaged tissue or blocked vessels, but he cannot pinpoint the place in any heart that falls in love, or chooses sin, or cries out in fear or longs to worship. Those places are hidden to him. But they are not hidden to God. He can touch them with laser-like accuracy whenever He chooses.

My heart is not only God’s creation, it is His permanent home. There is no part of it, no chamber, no vessel, no memory or scar – that is unfamiliar to Him. He rules the place. He ransomed it. It’s His.

When He wooed and won it, He did not refurbish my heart, paint over or patch it. He came in and made it new. He is still renewing it, some thirty-five years later. I’ve been on the table that long. And His gentle invasion is – and has been – utter healing of the surest, sweetest kind.

We are so afraid to give God our whole hearts. We’d rather rule our own flawed and pathetic little kingdoms than surrender them to Him. But half-hearted Christianity is no Christianity at all. He didn’t die for half your heart or mine. He wants the whole thing, and by all rights He should have it. After all…He is the King of Hearts.

“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes…and so you will be My people and I will be your God.” (Ezekiel 36:26, 27a, 28b, NASB)

©Leigh McLeroy 2004