{"id":2150,"date":"2022-11-18T09:19:57","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T14:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2150"},"modified":"2022-11-18T09:19:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T14:19:57","slug":"the-heart-of-the-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/18\/the-heart-of-the-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Heart of the Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
\u00a0
How do you know what\u2019s going on inside someone\u2019s chest?
\u00a0
Dr. Rene Laennec treated thousands of patients during the Napoleonic era in France, a time when medicine was just beginning to tackle that question.
\u00a0
Some doctors tapped on their patients\u2019 chests to determine the proportion of fluids there, not unlike the way brewers rapped on barrels to discern how much beer was inside.\u00a0 But how could one assess the health of a beating human heart?
\u00a0
The answer was to listen carefully.\u00a0 Doctors placed their ears directly on their patients\u2019 chests.
\u00a0
Which is why Dr. Laennec felt way out of his comfort zone when he approached the bedside of a buxom young woman in 1816.\u00a0 He felt certain she had a heart condition.\u00a0 But when the unmarried physician imagined placing his ear…well, the times being what they were, he couldn\u2019t actually imagine doing that.\u00a0 How could he assess her heart health at a discreet distance?
\u00a0
A few hours later Laennec was walking past the courtyard of the Louvre in Paris when he noticed a group of children playing with a length of wood.\u00a0 One child would scratch one end of the tube with a pin, while another child, listening at the opposite end, had to interpret the meaning of the scratchings.
\u00a0
That\u2019s it,<\/em> he thought.\u00a0 For Laennec, modesty turned out to be the mother of invention.\u00a0 Back at the hospital he rolled up a notebook and placed one end on the woman\u2019s chest and the other against his ear.\u00a0
\u00a0
\u201cI was surprised and gratified at being able to hear the beating of the heart with greater clearness than ever before.\u201d\u00a0 A short time later he fashioned a hollow wooden cylinder that worked even better.
\u00a0
Laennec thought his invention was too absurdly simple to deserve an actual name.\u00a0 But when pressed, he suggested the combination of the Greek words stethos <\/em>(\u201cchest\u201d) and skopos <\/em>(\u201cobserver\u201d):\u00a0 stethoscope.\u00a0<\/em>
\u00a0
Bedside care has never been the same since.
\u00a0
So how can we know what\u2019s happening in a human heart when \u201cheart\u201d represents something entirely different \u2013 the condition of one\u2019s inner life?\u00a0 Is there a moral stethoscope for assessing the character, motives, and integrity of another person?
\u00a0
In a word:\u00a0No<\/em>.
\u00a0
God alone knows the heart.\u00a0 And God\u2019s people have generally been at their worst whenever they have tried to identify who\u2019s \u201cin\u201d and who\u2019s \u201cout\u201d with regard to spiritual integrity.\u00a0
\u00a0
Of all the Hebrew prophets, Jeremiah had the most to say about the condition of human hearts. \u00a0He notes that God places all of us on a level playing field: \u201cThe heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure.\u00a0 Who can understand it?\u00a0 I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve\u201d (17:9,10).\u00a0
\u00a0
If that\u2019s the only word from God that Jeremiah has for us on the subject of the heart, we have good reason to feel despair.
\u00a0
But 14 chapters later, we encounter this timeless word of hope: \u201c\u2019This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,\u2019 declares the Lord.\u00a0 \u2018I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.\u00a0 I will be their God, and they will be my people.\u00a0 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, \u201cKnow the Lord,\u201d because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,\u2019 declares the Lord.\u00a0 \u2018For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more\u2019\u201d (Jeremiah 31:33,34).\u00a0
\u00a0
God knows our hearts.\u00a0 And God knows that all of us have an incurable heart condition that only he can heal.
\u00a0
The \u201cheart transplant\u201d we so desperately need isn\u2019t earned or deserved.\u00a0 It can only be received as a gift.\u00a0
\u00a0
And it only comes as we abandon ourselves in heartfelt trust to Jesus.
\u00a0
So take heart.\u00a0 The Great Physician knows exactly how our hearts can begin beating with his.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0How do you know what\u2019s going on inside someone\u2019s chest?\u00a0Dr. Rene Laennec treated thousands of patients during the Napoleonic era in France, a time when medicine was just beginning to tackle that question.\u00a0Some doctors tapped on their patients\u2019 chests to determine the proportion of fluids there, not unlike the way brewers rapped… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2151,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[535],"class_list":["post-2150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-heart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2152,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150\/revisions\/2152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}