Last week I faced an issue of the heart—not symbolically, but the actual muscle organ that pumps blood to the body. I was experiencing some chest pains—off and on—that seemed to extend over three days. So I called an advice nurse, who advised me to immediately go to the hospital emergency department. And so I did.
The reading of the first blood test suggested that I might have had a heart attack. So for the next fifteen hours I was subjected to a series of tests—EKG’s, an echocardiogram, blood tests, stress tests. But in the end, the doctors concluded that the first reading was a false one and decided to release me. I never found out what caused the chest pains. Only that it had nothing to do with the heart. In other words, my heart was doing fine and accomplishing what it was designed to do.
The heart remains a critical organ that must function properly in order for the physical body to stay healthy—or for a person to stay alive! Even just the possibility that my heart might not be functioning properly prompted medical personnel to get me to seek medical attention.
Which brings me back to the symbolic/spiritual significance of the heart. In popular culture, the heart is often understood as the seat of emotion. However, the biblical symbolism for the heart focuses more on the matter of the will that controls behavior. As Dallas Willard would put it, the heart “is the executive center of a human life. The heart is where decisions and choices are made for the whole person.” As such, for a person’s spiritual health and survival it is imperative that one’s heart functions properly. But it can be a tricky enterprise.
The Bible tells us: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17.9 ESV) The sickness of the human heart is its rebelliousness against God. It’s a bleak picture of the human condition, which is, humanly speaking, incurable. Human wisdom alone cannot fathom the depths of the human heart and, much less, find a cure to its malady.
Only God has a handle on the human heart. He is the one who can apply the proper tests to give a proper evaluation of its true condition. “But I, GOD, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be” (Jeremiah 17.10 The Message). Humanly speaking, the disease seems incurable. Yet one can find healing in God. “O LORD, if you heal me, I will be truly healed; if you save me, I will be truly saved” (Jeremiah 17.14 NLT). “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart” (Jeremiah 24.7 NIV).
—Keith Y. Jainga