The Heart Attack

Joshua 24:23 – "Now then," said Joshua, "throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel." (NIV)

As I walked down the hallway of our local hospital, posters reminded me that, in Canada, February is designated as "Heart Month". During the month, many of us will be invited to have our blood pressure checked, or be encouraged to give a donation for research, but, more importantly, we'll be reminded of the importance of daily exercise if we want reliable heart health.

While these posters serve as important reminders for our physical health, they fail to remind us of a more important check-up, a check-up on the condition of our spiritual health. Perhaps, when it comes to spiritual issues, we have been leading a sedentary lifestyle, trying to gather enough spiritual food on Sunday to last us the whole week. In today's Scripture, Joshua admonishes us to yield our hearts to the Lord. But this yielding is only the first step in obtaining spiritual health; we need to do more. Just like our physical hearts need exercise and a regular intake of nutritious food, our spiritual hearts need daily exercise in the form of prayer, and a regular portion of healthy food derived from routinely meditating on God's Word.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we bow before You today, asking You to examine our hearts. Show us where we have allowed the things of the world to crowd in on our time, and to keep us from our daily commitment to pray and to spend time in Your Word. Amen.