Heart Songs
19 April 2006
Fred here with a post-Easter edition of Cross Purposes. I guess you have all enjoyed the Easter Break. I hope you are all refreshed too.
Something from the Doctor’s…
A couple of weeks back I was over at the Doctors and, as one does, I was flicking through an old ‘Time’ magazine when an article caught my eye. It was entitled “Heart Songs” and it started like this;
The article went on to say that a Dr Michael Barrett, a cardiologist from Temple University, was thinking about this one day while fiddling with his new CD Burner. He promptly had good recordings of all the different heart sounds put on a CD and gave them to his students to listen to. The idea was that by regular listening to a healthy heart, and also the variations that come with heart murmurs, pneumonia, leaky valves or blocked arteries, the students would learn that their stethoscopes could be a very valuable medical aid.
When he checked with his students as to whether they were actually listening to the sounds they told him “Gee Dr Barrett, no one listens to CDs anymore. We’ve uploaded everything onto our ipods”.
The Doctor wasn’t daunted. He got hold of one of his computer savvy nephews and turned his heart recordings into ipod-readable MP3 files. This really clicked with the students who could now see the title of each “song” they played.
What fascinated me was that the students ability to diagnose heart murmurs jumped from 39% to 89% after listening to their ipods for 2-3 hours!
Why did this article (‘Time’ from Jan 30-31, 2006) grab me?
I wondered whether it was possible to think of that stethoscope stuff as a Christian. And one thing was immediately obvious – if you or I want to be able to diagnose what is NOT RIGHT in our hearts we must first learn what a RIGHT heart sounds like. Which means it makes sense to let ourselves be immersed in the rhythm of Jesus’ heart.
holy...just...integrity...truth...love...compassionate...mercy...grace
Once we know his heart, driven as it is by holy love for the Father, and holy love for the lost, we can properly discern our own hearts. Listed below are some of the heart truths we might hear with his stethoscope…
heart murmurs caused by greed, envy, hypocrisy, lies, dishonesty
heart palpitations caused by fear, worry, anxiety, refusal / inability to trust
racing heart caused by jealousy, revenge, hatred, ambition or lust
hardening of spiritual arteries – unforgiveness, resentment
hardening of heart – bitterness and stubbornness, criticism and judgement
heart muscle breakdown because of laziness and apathy
heart valve failure – from overwhelming selfishness
hole in heart at precisely the place where God is to be enthroned and where we talk to him.
That’s us! Like King David said “Create in me a clean heart O God!” Not renew the old one! Create a new one.
And God does! He creates a new heart for us. And he can do it because the heart which stopped beating on Good Friday, crushed with sin and shame, grief and sorrow, is restored whole on Easter Sunday. The thing is, when we get faith we get the heart as well, full of Spirit given and driven love.
We get a life – a heart transplant – and can live a life!
One other thing:
Someone asked our Dr Barrett how many times the students had to listen before they got it right. His answer – about 500 times! So how many times might we have to listen to Jesus’ spiritual heartbeat before we get it right? It’s worth thinking about!
Have a good week in Jesus!
Fred here with a post-Easter edition of Cross Purposes. I guess you have all enjoyed the Easter Break. I hope you are all refreshed too.
Something from the Doctor’s…
A couple of weeks back I was over at the Doctors and, as one does, I was flicking through an old ‘Time’ magazine when an article caught my eye. It was entitled “Heart Songs” and it started like this;
Just by listening through a stethoscope to the sounds inside your chest, a well-practiced doctor can tell whether a valve in your heart is leaky, you have a touch of pneumonia in your lungs or your heart isn’t pumping as much blood as your body needs. In many cases, a subtle change in the pattern of bodily noises can alert your physician to problems long before symptoms appear. Unfortunately, the art of auscultation, the technical term for listening to those sounds, is slowly dying. Seasoned physicians complain that their younger colleagues are simply more comfortable ordering high-tech – and more costly – computerised scans to make diagnoses.
The article went on to say that a Dr Michael Barrett, a cardiologist from Temple University, was thinking about this one day while fiddling with his new CD Burner. He promptly had good recordings of all the different heart sounds put on a CD and gave them to his students to listen to. The idea was that by regular listening to a healthy heart, and also the variations that come with heart murmurs, pneumonia, leaky valves or blocked arteries, the students would learn that their stethoscopes could be a very valuable medical aid.
When he checked with his students as to whether they were actually listening to the sounds they told him “Gee Dr Barrett, no one listens to CDs anymore. We’ve uploaded everything onto our ipods”.
The Doctor wasn’t daunted. He got hold of one of his computer savvy nephews and turned his heart recordings into ipod-readable MP3 files. This really clicked with the students who could now see the title of each “song” they played.
What fascinated me was that the students ability to diagnose heart murmurs jumped from 39% to 89% after listening to their ipods for 2-3 hours!
Why did this article (‘Time’ from Jan 30-31, 2006) grab me?
I wondered whether it was possible to think of that stethoscope stuff as a Christian. And one thing was immediately obvious – if you or I want to be able to diagnose what is NOT RIGHT in our hearts we must first learn what a RIGHT heart sounds like. Which means it makes sense to let ourselves be immersed in the rhythm of Jesus’ heart.
holy...just...integrity...truth...love...compassionate...mercy...grace
Once we know his heart, driven as it is by holy love for the Father, and holy love for the lost, we can properly discern our own hearts. Listed below are some of the heart truths we might hear with his stethoscope…
heart murmurs caused by greed, envy, hypocrisy, lies, dishonesty
heart palpitations caused by fear, worry, anxiety, refusal / inability to trust
racing heart caused by jealousy, revenge, hatred, ambition or lust
hardening of spiritual arteries – unforgiveness, resentment
hardening of heart – bitterness and stubbornness, criticism and judgement
heart muscle breakdown because of laziness and apathy
heart valve failure – from overwhelming selfishness
hole in heart at precisely the place where God is to be enthroned and where we talk to him.
That’s us! Like King David said “Create in me a clean heart O God!” Not renew the old one! Create a new one.
And God does! He creates a new heart for us. And he can do it because the heart which stopped beating on Good Friday, crushed with sin and shame, grief and sorrow, is restored whole on Easter Sunday. The thing is, when we get faith we get the heart as well, full of Spirit given and driven love.
We get a life – a heart transplant – and can live a life!
One other thing:
Someone asked our Dr Barrett how many times the students had to listen before they got it right. His answer – about 500 times! So how many times might we have to listen to Jesus’ spiritual heartbeat before we get it right? It’s worth thinking about!
Have a good week in Jesus!
Labels: heart sounds
posted by Boomerexy at 9:25 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home