Introduction

Some years ago I experienced something that just about every stressed-out, 40-something American male experiences - chest pains. You know, the kind that hit you in the middle of the night, and get you thinking that it's "the big one." I decided to get myself checked out, so they put me through the usual battery of tests - EKG's, stress tests, etc. At one point they thought they detected something, so they hooked me up for an echocardiogram, which is basically a sonogram of your heart. I found myself lying on a table watching my own heart beat on a TV screen. I gotta tell you, I didn't like it!

There was something vulnerable about it—watching that little mass of muscle beat away, keeping me alive. What if it stopped? What if it missed a few beats? There was nothing I could do to control it. I couldn't will it to beat faster or slower. All I could do was watch it, and hope it would keep going. I felt exposed. My heart up on the screen, and strangers were looking inside of me! The longer we looked at it, the less I liked it, because it only increased the likelihood they would see something they didn't like. Though it wasn't comfortable seeing my heart on a screen like that, it was important if I was going to find out what was going on in there, and if I was going to stay healthy.

Heart on a Screen

According to the Bible, the heart is the control center of a person's life. We normally associate the heart with our emotions, but the Bible usually associates the heart with a person's thoughts and will, as well as their emotions. The heart is that spiritual place within us from which everything about us flows; it is the seat of personality, the executive center of a person's ...

Bryan Wilkerson is pastor of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts.