“Is this good for my heart?”

Oh dark chocolate you say, ok give it to me!  Yes, I read dark chocolate is good for my heart.  You have to have a good heart to live productively!  Dark Chocolate for everyone!!!!!!!

So for the last 2 years as a nurse I have taken care of approximately 50 patients close to my age that have had a heart attack-blood flow is blocked to heart and chest pain is a common symptom.  Thankfully, most of these patients responded to pain timely, reported to hospital, underwent intervention and are doing very well at this time.  But this made me look at things that were bad for my heart:  my physical beating heart. There are many studies out there and many claims to what is good or beneficial for our hearts. 

I started with exercise, yoga, walking, jogging or going to the gym and getting my heart rate up on a treadmill or elliptical machine.  I started watching mostly what I ate and I lost some weight.  After 40 the weight does not come off easily!  But it made me ponder our hearts.  In the Bible, the word heart is used over 1000 times.

“Trust the Lord with all your heart, do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5

“So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.” Genesis 6:6

“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Proverbs 4:23

The word heart in these references is talking about the inner man, the mind and the understanding according to The Strong’s concordance of the bible. 

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” Jeremiah 17:9

God wants our hearts, wants us to put his words into our hearts, he wants to consume our hearts.  It is all we have our heart our inner most self.  God wants to be in the “midst” of our being. 

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

While I want my physical beating heart arteries to be clean free from plague and other things that clog the arteries.  How much more important is it to have a clean biblical heart.  A clean inner most self-only God in HIS absolute power can do that.  So we must love God, rely on HIM with everything we have!  Do not trust our hearts-let God lead us.  Think on things that God wants us to ponder, pray, read his word, follow HIS commands, confess our sins, lead others to HIM and trust him.  

Dear God, Help me to love you with all my heart, soul and mind.  Help me to trust you with my inner most self.  Help me to keep my heart clean-renew me as needed. (And help those coronary arteries stay clean).  Thank you for all you do and are doing for us daily and moment by moment. Help me to ask myself, “is this good for my heart?”