The Man with Two Hearts

This is a story about a man who has two hearts:

Such wasn't always the case. When he was a young boy, he only had one. He would play on the playground with his friends, in the backyard with his toys and chase the cat around the house like all boys do.

But then, he met the source of life. He came to learn that the source of life was a proper noun, a being. From The SOL he learned that his heart wasn't working right, that it had been corrupted and that it was effecting every other part of his life. The SOL had given him a new heart, to fix this problem, but he didn't take away his old one.

Now he has two hearts. It has become a daily battle as to which heartbeat he will live by. Some days, his older heart beats stronger, and other days, he knows that his new heart is pumping louder, stronger, clearer. Even this distinction was a long time in coming. Eventually he began to identify the rhythm of the sick heart. It beat to a different dance. It was more fun, more entertaining, perhaps even more natural at times. But it was very different, opposite in fact, from the constant, steady, regular beat of the new heart given him by The SOL.

Often frustrated with the hypocrisy and two-facedness of living with these two hearts, he wishes he could just be rid of one of them. Most of the time, his choice would be to keep the new one. But sometimes, if he is honest, he likes the excitement of his old heartbeat better.
However, simply choosing one and discarding the other is far and away a gross oversimplification. Getting rid of a heart, no matter which one, requires at one level, delicate surgery, and at another level, the brute force of carnivorous destruction. Both demand resolve, training, concentration, and time, and both result in pain and necessitate healing.

"Why couldn't it just have been my kidney?" he often moans, wearied by the tole of living such a demanding life. Then, as if being told by The SOL Himself, he realizes that such thoughts are driven by the old heart as a distraction from the gravity of the truth at hand: His heart is sick. Not his kidney. Not his leg, or his tonsils or his spleen. His heart. But of course, his heart effects all the others.

So he must rely on The Source of Life for living. He laughs. "Duh."

This man has two hearts: One heart leads to death, the other to life. The first is fighting a losing battle for his body, at the expense of his soul. The second is slowly gaining ground in the battle of his soul, at the expense of this body, with the promise of another. The sick heart recognizes only lies as seen through the lens of disease and selfishly screams 'Get what's yours before your gone!', relying on nothing and everything at the same time. The new heart, relying on The Source of Life, sees Truth for what it is and humbly proclaims 'Die to yourself to truly live.'

The old heart hates this post.

The new heart is writing it.

This is an autobiographical story of a man with two hearts, me, fighting to live by only one.



I recognize that this little story contains plenty of theological errors and oversimplifications and artistic liberties and I apologize, if even only to myself, for them. This lept from the pages of scripture in Luke 5 & 6 and into my heart (the new one) and mind and took hold and I had to get it out, as rough as it is. If anything, I only desire that it serve as a reminder that God's Word is alive and penetrates to the heart, which is exactly what happened on Tuesday (?i think it was Tues.?) when I read it.


~n8

The Sting of Death

I had plans for my next post, but two recent events have changed those plans, one of which I have decided to focus on now. My Grampa just died this morning. As I stood, looking at his now empty "tent" laying on his deathbed, my Grammy sitting at the head, holding his arm, tears streaming down her face from red eyes, I thought of the words of scripture which speak to the powerless nature of death for those who are in Christ. I Corinthians speaks of this specifically in chapter 15, the resurrection chapter, "Where, O death, is you victory? Where, O death, is you sting?" (v. 55). However, as I stood in that room today, I saw and felt the sting of death, or what remains of it. Ultimately, the victory is ours through our Lord Jesus Christ (see verse 56). But what remains of the sting of death is the pain and sorrow we are left with, who wittness death. In I Thessalonians we are not told not to grieve, but to grieve with hope. But hope in what? The immediate answer is hope in Christ, in God, in Heaven and in the glory God recieves from th outworking of His Soveriegn plan. But more simply, the common denominator of each of these is the fact that it is not this world and this life that ultimately matters. We were created by God for God. Earlier in the same chapter in I Corinthians, verse 50 reads that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable".
I was also reminded of some of the thoughts of Mr. Dan Cruver on pain, sorrow, and death. He spoke on death as a reminder of the implications and gravity of sin. He said that death should absolutely grieve and pain us. It should cause us to turn to ourselves and remind ourselves that we have the same disease within us that will lead one day to the same consequence. And finally, death is only the final ultimatum of a multitude of consequenses we face each moment for our sin.
So I ask myself again, "Where is the sting of death?" It is here on this earth and in my heart. And it is real. The tears, puffy eyes, tight throat and achy gutt are not fake conjured feelings we have made up. They are given to us by the God who made us. "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law" (verse 56) and sin is with us each day of our lives here. But, "thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 57) who God sent to accomplish what the Law could not (Ro. 8:3). The sting reminds us that however real and powerful it is, it is only temporary, that we have the victory, the hope of eternity, and a God who has effectively swallowed up death in His victory, the resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.