Let your heart beat again
My Pastor’s wife recently sang to our congregation the song “Tell Your Heart to Beat Again”. The words of this song are so powerful, and so beautiful, with a depth behind them that you cannot ignore.
Life invariably will knock you upside the head, or even knock you right down; it is not what happened that is nearly as important as what we do when we are knocked down. There are times when circumstances in life may get so overwhelming it feels suffocating, the weight is so heavy it is crushing. In those moments we can choose to be crushed, to withdraw, to let our hearts begin to fail. However if we make the decision to never give up, to keep on keeping on, even when life is coming at you, it is in those moments that we are telling our heart to beat again, and even if it had begun to fail, the decision has already been made to live.
When partaking in CPR training, the instructor will often state that it means nothing to have breath in the patient, if there is no blood circulating. In other words, even the breath of life will do nothing for you, if you do not have a heartbeat. I find there are more and more people today who are suffering from “heart failure.” I am not talking about the medical diagnosis either, but rather a spiritual one. In talking with some people recently, it seems like we are able to withstand less than our forefathers before our hearts begin to fail. Is it perhaps because we do not acknowledge the very One who is able to not only give us the breath of life, but is also able to give us faith and hope to have our hearts beat again?
There are so many who feel hopeless, lost, abandoned and all the while, Jesus is just waiting, for them to tell their hearts to beat again, to feel again, to love again, so that He can give them a new life. A life that is abundantly more fulfilling than living in the shadows of darkness that can so easily surround one. It is a decision, a choice; we can let the weight of life crush us, or take the breath from our lungs, or we can choose to stand up, allowing God to work on us in that moment.
Upon reflection we may look back, and see a valley filled with dead dry bones of promises that have not yet come to pass. The bones of dreams not yet fulfilled, the bones of dried up faith, the bones of lost joy, the bones of heartbreak, the dead dry bones of our life and all that has fallen apart. But even dry bones have the ability to live the scriptures tell us in Ezekiel chapter 37 verses 1-10. It will take a God who is bigger than any problem, any struggle to breathe life upon them again. Like our scripture tells us, God breathed upon them, and they came back to life, muscles, and sinew, and skin began to form, that is a miracle. But unless we decide to tell our hearts to beat again, and live … we will be like dead bones walking. Our zeal and passion for life will still be gone. God can breathe the breath of life upon our situation, but it takes faith to decide to live. It takes faith to believe that our heart will beat again. It takes faith to live a life believing that in all of this struggle, God has a plan for our lives. ~ Angie Hallam.
