Heart Attack

Heart Attack!

            The words are serious, dreaded, and feared.  We sometimes use the phrase "serious as a heart attack" when we want to assure our hearer that we are very sincere or telling the absolute truth.  My wife had a heart attack when she was 49.  It was so serious she had to rest in the hospital a few days so the heart muscle could be strong enough to stand the procedure of a heart catheterization.  She had to have two stents placed in her arteries.  Her first husband died at 50 from a heart attack.

            Last night we got a call from our daughter-in-law that her husband, our oldest son, was in the hospital ER with a heart attack.  The hospital is calling it "mild", but when it is your loved one it is never mild.  He is only 43.  We pray every day for our children.  We ask our loving Heavenly Father to watch over them and bring them into a close and saving relationship with Him.  Needless to say we prayed more last night after we got the news.  He is scheduled to have a heart catheterization later today and of course we will be at the hospital.

             I don't worry about questioning God's justice or goodness.  I know that God loves each of us and is constantly working with infinite love for the salvation of each person on earth.  He Who gave up His own Son to die for us is not going to turn around and try to destroy us.  The devil is the destroyer, Jesus is our Savior.  What I do question is how can I be a part of God's plan of saving?  I want to be working with God so that what may appear to be bad can be turned into something good.  My desire is to be a channel of blessing in every situation so the love of God can flow and bring salvation to all I come in contact with. 

            In a physical sense having a whole heart is absolutely necessary to life.  If the heart is damaged some of our activities may be curtailed.  We will not be able to do all that we could before.  Damage it enough and life will cease.  So in a spiritual sense.   I typed "whole heart" into my electronic concordance and came up with a number of texts.  One that struck me right away was God speaking in Jeremiah 32:41 - "I will rejoice over them to do them good... with My whole heart and with My whole soul."   God is a Spirit, yet He uses terms that show us there is nothing that He won't do that is for our good.  He will do whatever His infinite power and love can do in order to build us up and restore us. 

            We have to keep in mind that what we think is for our good, and what God knows, are not always the same thing.  "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways...."  Isaiah 55:8-9  He Who sees the end from the beginning is not bound by our limited finite view.  In Romans 8:32 we are assured:  "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?" 

            So today my prayer is that I may be a channel of God's comfort, strength, and healing.  May all my words and deeds point to Jesus and may God use me to reveal His power to save.  May the Holy Spirit fill me and this scripture be repeated:  "It came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching... the power of the Lord was present to heal."  (Luke 5:17)  May God's eternal purpose for our son be done.  And may His eternal purpose be done in each one reading this.