Skip to main content

Congestive Heart Failure

Congestive heart failure or CHF, which can be caused by years of hypertension, occurs when the heart muscle is weakened and can no longer pump blood like it should. It causes fluid to back up in the lungs and is overall very bad for your system. Left untreated, it can lead to death.

Why do I know this? My (sainted) father was diagnosed with CHF this past weekend after being rushed to the hospital while on vacation. I love my dad VERY much and I was dismayed (to say  the least) at the news. Thank God he is doing much better. Jehovah Rophe is still in the healing business. Hallelujah!!

Of course, I began thinking about CHF in spiritual terms. Are we letting our spiritual heart muscles get weak to the point of failure? Are we, AM I, being ever vigilant about my spiritual heart? Do I have the heart of Christ? Do I have a pure heart? A heart that follows hard after the Lord?

 My dad knew he was hypertensive. He'd seen several doctors and was on medication long-term, to the point where the medication was of none effect. So while he thought he was treating himself, in fact, nothing was happening.

Has your Bible reading/study become mundane? Do you still have that song of praise in your Spirit? Do you remember to give God the glory first for any and all of your achievements?

This is the inconvenience of Christianity. We can become so complacent in our "Chrisitian" routine, that the things we are doing are ineffectual when we think they are keeping our hearts in check. Maybe it's time we ask the Holy Spirit to do a spiritual EKG to see if our spiritual treatment regimen is still being effective. If not, perhaps it's time for a change before we end up with spiritual CHF.

Comments

  1. So happy to hear your dad is doing better. I'll keep in my prayers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. thanx dear. he should be out of the hospital today.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ride or Die

I love this phrase. There are quite a few subtle variations on the meaning, but it is an urban colloquialism that means loyalty, no matter what. I thank God that I have been blessed with a few people that have that kind of loyalty to me and I to them. It's a rich blessing that have true friends. They are with me and in my corner no matter what (or "regardless of what" as one of them would say). This week we had Vacation Bible School at my church and I was privileged to be a teacher. The first lesson was taken from Daniel chapter three. The very well known story of the three Hebrew boys: Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego. It is a wonderful story of faith, but something jumped out at me so profoundly that it almost knocked me over. We always focus on the deliverance. But the Hebrew boys did not. Their focus was on God and Him alone. They were ride or die for the Lord. Literally. If you read the story, they never once pray for deliverance. They talk about God's a...

When God Says No...

Two things are certain: God is able and God is sovereign. The problem is that His ability and His sovereignty don't always work together. Sometimes His sovereignty overrules His ability and though He can do something on our behalf, He doesn't because it is not His will. That is the hardest thing to accept for us as Christians. Most times, our faith wanes not because we don't think He is able, but because we assume that just because He is able, He is also willing. Unfortunately, in a lot of instances His sovereign will causes Him to refuse to do something that He was more than able to do. If we look at Paul, we see a great example of that. Paul had a "thorn in the flesh" and besought the Lord three times to remove it. God never did. Not because He wasn't able, but because there was a purpose to Paul's thorn in the flesh that would benefit Paul more than the removal of the "thorn" (see 2 Cor. 12:7-10). This is something that I am li...

Walk Away

Hello out there! I've been a bit on the silent side for the past few weeks...the truth is, I was having a little trouble hearing from the Lord. It's amazing how clearly you can hear Him once you take a moment to really listen. Now....on to the blog. The title of this blog comes from one of my FAVORITE songs by one of my FAVORITE groups called the  Indigo Girls . I don't agree with a lot of their beliefs, but I find it interesting how I can find spiritual truths in their lyrics (and to their credit, they do make a surprising number of Biblical allusions). Anyway, back to my point. "Walk Away" is a song from the POV of a person who is leaving a relationship a bit reluctantly. The first lines of the song are "We used to walk in each other's arms, we were one-on-one, that's what you said." The song goes on without a refrain/chorus, just a repeated line: "Walk away." For me the climax of the song is when the singer declares that she is a...