I accompanied my father to the
examination room for his 2D echo test three days ago. It was my first time to
see a sonogram of the heart. I could hardly remember all the parts of our
central organ, but as I saw the images of my father’s heart and heard its beat as
it pumps rhythmically, I was struck with awe.
A provoking line from Francis Chan’s
book Crazy Love came to my mind. The majority of us take for granted our
kidneys, liver, lungs, and other internal organs that we’re dependent upon to
continue living. We know our kidneys are inside our bodies, our heart is in
our chest. But it’s not until we experience a sharp pain in the back or difficulty
in breathing that we become concerned. Chan was right. On the average day, we
forget that our life is truly a vapor. We could die any moment.
In the same vein, we don’t consider God
very much most of the time. We’re either struggling to survive, or just the
opposite, succeeding steadily that we leave God in the sidelines. Some might
object. I pray to Him first thing in the
morning. I attend church on Sundays. When I have time, I volunteer. I give a
portion of my income to support the work of the church. But is that enough?
Or should we rather ask: Is that the
only way we are to view our devotion to God?
Jesus commanded His followers, “Love the
Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). The other
day, I stumbled upon an article by Jason DeRouchie titled "Love God with Your Everything" where he expounded on the said verse. I think he captured what it
means to love God with all our hearts and soul when he said, “We are to love
God with our passions, hungers, perceptions, and thoughts. But we are also to
love him with how we talk, and what we do with our hands, and how we utilize
our talents, and how we react to challenges — our entire being is to display
that we love God.”
From time to time it’s good to submit
our hearts for a spiritual test. Let’s allow God to search our hearts and show
us what really makes our hearts beat, what makes them sick, why they wander far
from Him. Let us allow God, the One who
made our hearts and keeps them beating, to impress upon us what pleases Him. From
time to time, let’s check if our hearts are still in sync with Him.
