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Marc Vandenbroucke sits on the couch in his apartment. The television is flickering; two quarter pounders with cheese, a pile of fries, and a giant coke are on the coffee table, ready for gulping. The food passes by his mouth indistinguishably as a flow of salt, potatoes, meat, and sugar. Oh, the comfort of it after a hard day.

The first hundred pounds over his normal weight had been shocking, but Marc got used to it. Food made him feel good, and more food meant more comfort. It was his one pleasure in life. Another thirty pounds swelled his gut and people joked about the name of his child growing inside. Understandably, he stopped going out with friends and missed more days from work. Instead, he withdrew into his food and whatever other diversions (movies or football on television) could deliver him from the growing dissatisfaction with his life. Marc was lost in his body, but he took little notice until Big Saturday.

On Big Saturday, Marcs heart collapsed. The strain of a blockage in a major arterial junction overcame the weakened thumps of his heart. The blockage is right here, said the doctor, pointing to the chest x-ray, right at the corner of McDonalds Drive and Wendy's Road. Marc was not amused by the joke. It wasnt right that the doctor should blame him for a catastrophic attack on his life. Nonetheless, Marc was grateful to the surgeon for reopening the jammed artery with a stent, but the damage had been done. Marcs heart suffered from the abuse and internal disintegration of what was once a strong heart and body. But it wasnt Marcs fault was it? He was a victim herewasnt this mostly a hereditary condition?

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 Doc, help me, pleaded Marc, I dont want to die.

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 Youve already died, replied the doctor sternly, I just brought you back to life. The question is, how are you going to deal with your heart now that youve been brought back to life? All the basic health instructions that hed always been told (but never listened to closely or believed were important) were repeated to him over the following weeks during his recovery.

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 These are statins, said nurse Abigail, holding up a bottle of pills. They will help your body reduce the cholesterol that flows into your bloodstream, clogs your blood vessels, and makes it harder for your heart to pump the blood. Take these pills every day without fail.

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 Every day, repeated Marc, because my heart is full of stuff that makes it hard. He patted his chest in the middle, as if to console himself and his worn-out heart.

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 This is a nutrition guide, continued the nurse. If you want to live, you have to completely change what you eat and drink. Your heart and body have basically become equivalent to a Big Mac, fries, and chocolate shake. Thats not a happy meal, Marc. People say you are what you eat--well, yeah, it's true. You need to watch closely everything that you eat, including the kind of foods, the amounts, and the times that you eat. Follow this and respond to the nutritionists monitoring of your physiology. If you want physical health and well-being, you have got to respond to the medical support we are offering you. Nurse Abigail looked hard at Marc to read his eyes. A victim would not respond, but look blankly and wallow. Was he even listening? Do you hear me, son? Are you listening to this?

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 Yes maam, stammered Marc, nodding his head as vigorously as he could while lying in the bed. I repent of my wicked ways! he joked weakly. He was glad to see the nurse smile at it.

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 Well you cant do this alone, and we dont expect you to. Were advising your diet, cleaning up your blood, and youre joining a health club. Marcs eyes widened at that. Yes you are, she continued, or youre going to die again right back here next year. She pointed emphatically at the hospital bed. You cant expect your heart to get healthy overnight without you having to be involved with the doing of your own health. If your hearts going to change, you have to be aware of whats going in to you, what activities will improve your health, and youve got to spend time with other people who are getting healthy.

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 But I got bad knees, complained Marc, so I cant run. I cant lift weights, I dont know how to swim. I just always felt like Im going to die any time I tried to ride that bicycle machine. Surely, he thought, she couldnt make him exercise. He could see on her face that none of his excuses were going to work with her. Not this time. Not like in the past.

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 Oh yeah, I bet you havent tried nothing, retorted Abigail. Well then, have it your way, Burger King. Just forget everything I said and eat yourself another Big Mac. Just harden your heart and keep fattening full your stubborn self.

Then she leaned in closer and dropped her voice to a harsh whisper. Off the record here, Im just speaking to you as a concerned human being. You do exactly what I tell you or none of this will get you past next Christmas. No surgery in the world that might get the extra fat off of you or squeeze down your stomach will make you healthy. Change has got to start on the inside. Theres no time for you to be a victim here. You got to get up and live. You were made for a whole different way of life than what youve been doing. Are you hearing me? The challenge floated between them.

She held his eye with her gaze, and then she let him go, satisfied with the look of terror that had replaced the victimized resistance at her mention of exercise. Then she straightened up and smiled at him. Like a coach who had in mind the training for a young, undisciplined team. Are you hearing me?

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 Yeah, said Marc slowly, how am I supposed to exercise and learn how to eat right when Im a mess like this? I dont feel like I can do anything youre saying. Marc held his hands up, as if to show how feeble he was.

泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭泭 You cant play the victim, said Abigail, and you cant do it alone. Like I said before, theres a group of people just like you who meet every day at a health club right near your home. You can actually walk to it from home. Thatd be a warm up. Abigail smirked again. She was enjoying the shock Marc was displaying. You start real slow, trust the coaches, and do what they tell you all day and every day. Youll make friends and together youll find the courage and motivation to get a changed heart out of the deal.

She smiled again because Marcs demeanor had completely changed to glimmer with hope. The talk of exercise was making him sweat uncomfortably. The man had been trying to do everything alone, and gave up about a hundred times, but with friends and coaches that he could trust, he might make it.

Three years saw Marcs heart reverse from dark peril to symptoms of health and overall vitality. He continued to respond to the guidance of his nutritionist, the cardiologist, nurse Abigail, and his trainers at the health club. Changes were incremental. Discouragement always threatened him. The temptation to play the victim and give up visited and revisited. But he had help. Friends supplied motivation when Marcs was low. Throughout the journey he came to learn how his heart had become sick and darkhed paid no attention to it and ignored its centrality to his well-being. Things began to change in his beliefs, appetites, and feelings about food, exercise, and his relationships with people.

Later he would say that the whole experience was actually a gift. Hed become aware of his changeable heart when crisis struck his whole being through its failure. This was a catastrophic sign of his spiritual condition. More deeply crucial than the blood pump in his chest was his spiritual heart. Both could be abused. Both are vital to his well-being. Both required his attention. Having lived through the crisis of his near-death through inattention to his physical heart, Marc wanted to know how he could avoid a crisis of the eternal kind through attention to his spiritual heart.

Providentially, Marcs discovery of his hardened heart and recovery to a healthy heart and body is a divine metaphor sounding all through the Bible (over 800 times). The spiritual heart of a person is the core and control center for ones whole being and life. The contents of the heartemotions, desires, beliefsand the operations of the heartchoices, responses, directing actionconstitute the persons daily existence. For this reason we are told, Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life (Prov 4:23, ESV). That is, we must watch over the inflow and motions in the heart, the center where everything comes to rest, and the center that generates all our responses.

Jesus warns that it is in the heart where the man begins the path to adultery by leering at a woman with lustful objectification, desiring sexual gratification, not relationship (Matt 5:28). Moreover, the action of the heart is the persons response to God, whether living receptive and surrendered to God by belief (Deut 6:4-6; Rom 10:9-10), and treasuring Him in the first place (Matt 6:21) instead of all other treasures on earth. The heart is where evil is conceived and commenced (Mark 7:20-23).

Above all else in the Christian life, there must be a change of the heart that begins with renewal of the core self through the purification and indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Ezek 36:25-26; 2 Cor 5:17). From that new creation, the ongoing transformation effected by Gods indwelling presence and action continues to rehabilitate, retrain, and disciple the heart, though never without the persons willing participation. God is providentially active in progressive sanctification to work all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose宇o be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom 8:28-29, ESV), calling for us to respond to His work, to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil 2:12-13, ESV).

Having been claimed and renewed by Gods grace (Rom 12:1), we are remade to live as the receivers of His love and we engage from the heart with His purposes. We engage by resisting conformity with the perishing order of things, and receiving Gods transforming workscentered on the change of heart (Rom 12:2). At the end we will see the completion of having a heart like Gods, as was partially exemplified by Abraham, Ruth, David, Esther et al, and maximally demonstrated by Jesus Christ.

泭Similar to the way that Marc and all of us enter life with a particular set of genetic dispositions and environmental factors that create our physical vulnerability to heart attack, spiritually we enter life and develop ravaged by sinour own and others. Such are the perpetual consequences of alienation from God. Just as Marc did not have it within himself even to hope of change once he had been rescued from the edge of his peril in physical death, so it is that none of usregardless of where we begin in discipleship to Jesus or however well-equipped or hindered we might beno sinner is sufficient in himself to change the heart and conform it to Christ. In this inadequacy we are partly to blame (we continue to sin to our own hurt), but mostly we have overwhelming powers arrayed against our well-being, as we are stained with corruption, sundered from God, and misled by all sinners we encounter in the Church and out of it.

Our only hope is Gods works to renew us, propel us, encourage us, and challenge our wholehearted responses to defect every day from the old affections to sin. In this we are aided by Gods providential works through His people (as with a support group for physical health), wise fathers and mothers in the faith who will shepherd us (as with coaches, doctors, and dieticians), and mission impossible circumstances whereby God evokes our increasing reliance on the substance of His presence and sufficiency instead of our own (as with weight training and physical challenges to build muscle through fighting against gravity in various ways).

Jesus Christ has set us free from the victimization of sin (ours and others), and liberated us to respond to Him in that radical life He promised as abundant life that would be full of joy (John 10:10). What is going on in my heart? What is God doing providentially to strengthen, liberate, and provoke the expression of my heart? How is God conforming my heart to be like His heart? With every beat.

For a more complete explanation of the biblical theme of the spiritual heart, how it functions, and how God works with our hearts, see the excellent and clearly written book, Minding the Heart: The Way of Spiritual Transformation, Robert L. Saucy (Kregel, 2013).

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