Cardiac Arrest – The Shema!
When I was in the 7th grade, my science teacher Mrs. McMurray, gave our class an assignment. We were to make a poster of the heart with all the blood vessels and chambers labeled. I am not the most art-minded person, so I asked my mom, who is very artistic, to help me out. Well, you can see where this is going – my mom ended up drawing, coloring, and labeling the whole poster – it was a thing of beauty. Mrs. McMurray liked it so much, she kept it!
I didn’t learn a whole lot about the heart in that assignment because I didn’t draw it myself. However, when I got to college and decided to major in biology, I certainly had to study the heart’s structure and function. Here are a few of the basics: the heart has four chambers (2 upper and 2 lower). The chambers are connected by delicate valves that control the correct blood flow. The heart knows when to send the oxygen-depleted blood to the lungs and then back to the heart to be pumped back into your body. It is an amazing organ.
If any one part of the heart goes haywire, it can throw everything else out of whack. For instance, if one of your valves does not shut properly, you can develop a heart murmur. If the natural pace maker in your heart goes nuts, your heart rhythm will be out of synch. All of the sudden, you may begin feeling these problems physically: you become tired, feel faint, or have heart palpitations. A multitude of things have to happen for your heart to work properly. In other words, your WHOLE heart has to be committed to the same goal – pumping the blood!
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 says: “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart…” This scripture gives us our “heart” goal – to love God with ALL our heart! If our heart is tugged by worldly cares and divided affections, our spiritual heart beat will be out of synch. And that is really where the trouble begins isn’t it? When our heart is out of synch, then symptoms start manifesting in our outward lives. We quit reading the Bible, we quit praying, we quit attending church….you get the idea. Take a look at Matthew 15:18-19. Jesus gave a laundry list of sins that originate where – in the heart! Just as a physical heart problem manifests with symptoms or cardiac arrest, a spiritual heart problem does the same!
The Jewish people recite these verses in Deuteronomy during their daily prayers (called the Shema) to remind themselves that they serve THE one true God. When someone asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, He echoed these verses from Deuteronomy in Matthew 22:37, affirming their importance to all believers!
These days, we hear all kinds of advice from TV ads, our doctors, and the internet about how to take care of our heart. We need to heed Jesus’ advice – let’s love God with our whole heart! Jesus said that everything else we do depends upon this first and most important commandment. The only way our spiritual heart will beat in synch is when we keep this commandment. ♥