Last spring I spent four days in Huntsville Hospital after experiencing frightening chest pains. It was a grueling and painful four days, but the end results were a huge relief. No blockages. No surgery required. After feeling like a ticking time bomb, I could finally breathe easily again. The cause of the chest pains remained undetermined, but stress was considered to be the culprit, and I blamed Steve. :) Bless him. All was well.
Last week I returned to my cardiologist for a follow-up visit, feeling almost smug because there had been no other incidents and I felt great. I fully expected to be sent on my way for another worry-free year. However, my EKG showed numerous extra beats, and the doctor heard a heart murmur. Both of those were surprises to me, so now I'll be having MORE tests to get to the root causes. Since I got a reassuring smile from the doctor and was sent home, I concluded that I wasn't in any immediate danger. Yet, I've been a little off-kilter ever since. There were hidden problems in my heart. Problems that could grow into something bigger.
Because I tend to think in terms of biblical applications to everyday circumstances, I began wondering what problems could be happening in my spiritual heart that have gone undetected. Or, at the very least, unaddressed.
Are there unconfessed sins beginning to mount up?
Is there growing resentment toward someone?
Has bitterness gotten a foothold?
Have I grown apathetic toward the needs of others?
Have I ignored any promptings by the Holy Spirit about people I should find a way to touch?
Does my heart (motives, actions, attitudes) resemble the heart of Jesus?
When we don't seek the wisdom of the Great Physician or apply the "diagnostic tests" found in the Bible, major problems are often allowed to grow when they should have been dealt with as soon as they appeared, while they were still in the tiny, beginning stages. It's the same reason I get regular mammograms. If I am going to have breast cancer (as my mother and sister did), I want it to be detected as early as possible.
In my physical heart and in my spiritual heart, I greatly desire the healing of the Great Physician just as this invalid did during the days Jesus walked the earth.
John 5:1-9 -- "After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going, another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9 And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath."
How is YOUR heart?
Do you need to be healed by the Great Physician?
Here is the post I wrote a few days after I got out of the hospital last year. https://www.conniewasthere.com/2019/03/08/and-then-you-started-praying/