Heart Transplant

A friend’s facebook post has stuck with me since I read it yesterday:
• "As of today, I am the father of an *11* year old middle schooler... happy birthday Clara, my bonnie wee lassie... you have the blood of the Scots in you and the heart of the Lord. What a blessed dad I am!"

First of all, it goes without saying that Clara is a fortunate girl to have a dad who values most that she has the heart of the Lord. I was imagining what a girl Clara must be. Having the heart of Jesus doesn’t mean just being sweet like Jesus in the pictures we’ve seen of him with children sitting on his knee. It involves compassion for the less fortunate, valuing people who are outcasts, speaking out for justice, taking risks to challenge established ways that are evil, self-sacrifice, loving God and loving others.

Just like Clara, truly what Jesus wants is for us to have a heart transplant. Ezekiel 36:26 says, “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.”

A heart of flesh has new passions and new affections for good. A heart of stone is just that, hard hearted. Like the Grinch before he meets Cindy Lu Who or Scrooge before his exciting night of ghostly visits, there is a lack of love and compassion, and only selfish ambition.

At Missio Lux we say that where the three circles of our values overlap, knowing God, loving others and serving the world, is where God’s heart beats in us.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like I’m still waiting for the complete transplant. The heart of flesh and the heart of stone can’t work together, and yet there are times when my heart is inflexible, the chambers aren’t filled up or my valves are stuck, my aorta has too much plaque, and the blood, or love, doesn’t flow with the intensity and force that it should. Desiring the complete transplant, this conversion to heart of flesh seems sometimes like a slow and painful process.

This is how Eugene Peterson describes it (from Ezekiel 36) in The Message paraphrase of the Bible:
“I'll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I'll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that's God-willed, not self-willed. I'll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands. You'll once again live in the land I gave your ancestors. You'll be my people! I'll be your God!”

Happy Birthday Clara, a girl with a successful heart transplant!