The Heart Disease from Which We All Suffer

Health has been on our minds a lot the past few years, hasn’t it? The pandemic sent us retreating into our homes. Now the news media are “encouraging” us with reports of a “triple-demic” – COVID, the flu and another respiratory disease called RSV.

 

Despite these health scares, the number one killer of people isn’t the coronavirus, cancer, stroke, acts of violence, kidney disease, car accidents or the flu. Year to year, the leading cause of death among men and women in the United States and around the world is heart disease. 

 

No wonder: The healthy human heart never takes a break. The American Heart Association says for most adults, between 60 and 100 beats per minute is normal. Let’s say your heart beats on average 70 times per minute. That means it beats 4,200 in one hour; more than 100,000 times in a single day! Extend that over the course of a full year and your magnificent muscle has thumped about 37 million times. Factor in a lifespan of more than 70 years, and your busy heart has been beating more than 2.5 billion times! 

 

I’m thinking about this because it’s my “anniversary.” Sixteen years ago, my heart was actually stopped – for about 40 minutes – replaced by a heart-lung machine during open-heart surgery. I received four bypasses and a new ascending aorta to correct a life-threatening aneurysm. But my heart has been faithfully doing its job ever since, beating well over 500 million times. 

 

I thank the Lord for that, because almost every day we hear or read about people who have suffered serious heart attacks or other forms of heart dysfunction. With how hard and long our hearts work, it’s a marvel that they keep going as long as they do.

 

Regular updates I get from the Heart Association remind me of the grim toll heart disease takes, but a different heart issue every one of us suffers from doesn’t get nearly as much attention. It’s the disease afflicting our spiritual hearts. As Jeremiah 17:9 tells us, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” The Amplified Bible expands on this stating, “who can understand it fully and know its secret motives?”

 

This isn’t referring to the muscle in our chests that keeps blood coursing through our bodies. It concerns that part of us controlling our feelings, our will and our motivations. As the prophet Jeremiah said, we’re all born with sick hearts spiritually.

 

Jesus Christ addressed this when He said, “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).

 

He does offer the cure, but as Jesus noted, not everyone is ready to receive it. “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them” (Matthew 13:15). He was quoting almost verbatim from Isaiah 6:9-10.

 

Let me ask you: If a cardiologist or cardiothoracic surgeon informed you that you had a very serious heart condition, but one that could be remedied, would you accept the cure? That’s exactly what I did in 2006, and God was gracious to keep a promise that I had read in Psalm 41:3, “The Lord will sustain him on his sickbed and restore him from his bed of illness.”

 

But even better than that, nearly 30 years earlier the Lord had started to address my spiritual heart condition. This is described in two places in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, including Ezekiel 36:26, where He declares, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

 

In a very real sense, this is exactly what happens when a person is “born again” spiritually, as Jesus termed in John 3:3, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” When that occurs, we experience what we find described in the Old Testament: “The Lord God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul and live” (Deuteronomy 30:6

 

I have not ceased being thankful for my skilled heart surgeon, Dr. Richard Morrison, his surgical team, and the cardiologists who have cared for me since the life-changing day my physical heart was repaired. However, that momentous event still pales in comparison to what the Lord has done in my life spiritually.

 

Hebrews 10:22 says it better than I could: “let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” 

Have you had a heart checkup – especially if you’re advancing in years? I can’t recommend that strongly enough. But what about your spiritual heart? A “checkup” there is even more urgent. One day, no matter how well we take care of our human hearts, they will stop. But once you receive a new spiritual heart, it’s good for all of eternity! 

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

Things just aren’t made to last. How many people do you know that keep their cars 10 years or longer? Maybe a few, but not many. Some people purchase a new automobile every year or two, others hang onto them for several years. But we know that cars have a limited lifespan. Trade it in before it breaks!

The same applies to clothing, appliances, eyeglasses, even paint. Most smartphones have an expected life of two years. By the time our mobile provider contract is up, there’s a totally new version available that makes our old cell phone seem like it has a rotary dial. And computers? We might try to squeeze every day out of them that we can, but with the advances in technology, your computer is obsolete almost before you can get it home and plug it in.

We purchase things fully knowing that almost before we realize it, it’s time to replace them. “Planned obsolescence” is one term for it. Products are manufactured with enough durability that they don’t break or deteriorate within the first few months or years, but sooner or later they become old and worn, in need of replacement. Or the new version is so advanced we feel foolish clinging to the old one.

This model of the human heart, on Discovery Fit &
Health's website, shows an amazingly durable organ.

So I always marvel about the endurance and longevity of the human heart. We occasionally hear of people having heart transplants, but for most of us the heart we’re born with is the one we’ll take to the grave. That’s why coronary health is of increasing importance. People are living longer and if they don’t take precautions, heart disease looms in their future. If you have a heart attack you can’t simply go to a used heart store and get a new one.

A normal heart at rest can beat from 60 to 100 times per minute. The average person, according to the Mayo Clinic, has a resting heart rate of 72 beats per minute. That translates to 4,320 beats in one hour; 103,680 beats in a 24-hour day; 38 million beats in a single year. And that doesn’t include faster heart rates during times of exertion and stress. Applying those statistics to a 70-year human life span – and many people are living much longer than that – a single heart will beat non-stop more than 2.7 billion times. That is a lot of lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub!

In a day or so I’ll mark seven years since undergoing open-heart surgery. It involved four arterial bypasses and, for good measure, an entirely rebuilt ascending aorta. (The old one was on the verge of popping, which isn’t a good thing.) So when Christmas rolls around, I regard the past year as another gift. Other than the half-hour or so when my heart was stopped during surgery, with a heart-lung machine filling the gap, my heart has been beating and pumping without fail.

Over the succeeding years I’ve engaged in a consistent cardio exercise program (my resting heart rate is 60), I’ve tried to eat better (there’s still room for improvement), and I’ve taken my medications as prescribed. This marvelous blood-pumping machine God gave me more than six decades ago has served me well.

Most physicians and scientists would tell you the heart is nothing more than tissue and muscle, designed extremely well for performing a very specific task. The Bible, however, views the heart differently. It describes the heart as the seat of emotion – and motivation.

For instance, one translation of Proverbs 4:23 states, “Keep your heart with all vigilance (guard your heart), for from it flow the springs of life.” As the prophet Samuel searched for a new king for the people of Israel, God told him, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). And Jeremiah 17:9 declares, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

Obviously these passages aren’t referring to physical properties and functions of the human heart, but do suggest there may be a spiritual dimension to the marvelous muscle. For years following my surgery, I volunteered at the hospital, visiting patients who also had undergone open-heart procedures. It was not unusual for even strong, tough-looking men to have eyes fill with tears as they reflected on what they had just experienced – the fact they had ventured to death’s door and then stepped away.

So as I take time to reflect again on the blessing I have in a refurbished physical heart, I’m also reminded of Jesus’ admonition about the spiritual heart: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Perhaps He had in mind the warning from Proverbs 21:2, “All a man’s ways seem right to him; but the Lord weighs the heart.”

Where is your heart today?

Really a ‘Personal' Thing?

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s website reports dramatic changes in cancer survival rates. For instance, in 1962 only four percent of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (cancer of the blood) survived; today, the survival rate is 94 percent. In 1962, only seven percent of children with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (cancer of infection-fighting cells) survived; today, 85 percent overcome that disease.

Many adult maladies boast similar statistics, including breast cancer and heart disease. In one way or another, we’re all beneficiaries of medical science’s incredible advances.

What if researchers, upon making their discoveries, had determined, “We’re not going to tell anyone about this. It’s personal. Who are we to impose our cure on someone else?”

Ludicrous? Of course. If someone found the cure to AIDS, or diabetes or Alzheimer’s and withheld that information, they might be viewed as murderers.

Yet everywhere we confront an equally devastating disease, yet many are chastised for offering what they believe to be the cure. This disease is not physical but spiritual: Sin. It takes many forms – lust, greed, selfishness, dishonesty, murder, abuse, etc. And we’re all afflicted. The Bible states, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

The cure, according to the Scriptures, is freely available: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

But there’s just one cure, Jesus Christ. It’s not multiple-choice. Perhaps that seems narrow, but if physicians tell me there is one vaccine for the flu, or one cure for a disease, I won’t accuse them of being rigid and narrow-minded. I’ll take the cure.

Understanding Jesus provides the cure to the depravity infecting all of humanity, I’ll communicate this cure to anyone willing to consider it. Anyone can reject the cure, but I won’t be a murderer for failing to tell them about it

The Heart of the Matter

Sunday will be a momentous anniversary for me, marking three years since undergoing open heart surgery. It’s both humbling and sobering to have your chest splayed open to repair arterial blockages and, in my case, replace an enlarged ascending aorta.

I was blessed to have a foremost cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Richard Morrison, assisted by a top-notch surgical team. But for about 30 minutes during my six-hour surgery, my heart was literally stopped and my body cooled to about 82 degrees while a heart-lung machine kept blood coursing to my brain. I virtually stood at death’s door, but thankfully did not remain there. Each new day represents a gift from God. (My heart pillow, shown at right, which aided my recovery, serves as a reminder.)

There’s a curious thing about the heart: Scientists and physicians typically regard it solely as an organ pumping blood throughout the body. However, even an intellect like Albert Einstein recognized more than physiological value in the heart. He observed, “Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”

Philosophers, poets and spiritually minded people have long considered the heart as the seat of emotions, even the source of love. For instance, Mark Twain said, “One learns people through the heart, not the eyes or the intellect.” And Charles Dickens wrote, “A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”

The Bible advises, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Elsewhere in the book God exhorts His followers, “Let love and faithfulness never leave you…write them on the tablet of your heart” (Proverbs 3:3), and “All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart” (Proverbs 21:2), affirming that faith requires more than cerebral pursuit.

How the heart performs its physical, emotional – and spiritual – functions in tandem exceeds my understanding. But approaching this huge milestone in my life probably stronger and healthier than I’ve been in decades, to those who cared for me, as well as all who prayed and offered encouragement, I simply say:

Thank you, with all my heart!