Cardiology

This past Sunday, I sat in on my church's adult Sunday School. The passage we read was the Anointing of David by Samuel (1 Samuel 16:1-13). This is a fabulous text and it sparked good conversation. As we were talking, I thought about the perplexing issue of David. God chose the young shepherd as the replacement for Saul, the king who had been chosen by the people. David and Saul are often held up as example of good and bad. The actual text, however, is less black-and-white.

David is not perfect. He is an adulterer and murderer, who uses his God-given position and authority to cause the death of his mistress' husband, Uriah. Saul, likewise, isn't all bad. As God's favor turns away from him, I can't help but feel sorry for him. He is earnest in his desire to rule well. Comparing to David's transgressions to Saul's, it's sometimes hard to tell who's the good king and who's the bad king.

Yet David is special. He is "a man after God's own heart" (1 Sam 13:14). This "heart" talk is repeated in chapter 16, when God tells Samuel that men and women "look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Sam 16:7). The heart is important to God. Something in David's heart appeals to him, while something in Saul's does not. It might be as simple as that. As were were discussing the text, the image of the cardiologist--the heart doctor--came to me. God is the Divine Cardiologist.

As the Cardiologist, he's interested in our heart health. Are we exercising it enough? How do we exercise our hearts? Walking, cycling and running are good for our hearts, but God is looking deeper. We must work out by loving more, caring more, feeling more for those we see (and those who we'll never see). Compassion is the exercise of the heart that the Divine Cardiologist prescribes. Quite simply, we must become more like Christ in the way we think, feel, and act. We must conform our heart to His. It's quite a workout. It gets easier the more we do it (like most exercise), but it never becomes automatic. We must always choose.

The right author (e.g. Maxine Dunham) could probably write a devotional book or short-term Bible study on God-as-Cardiologist. I'm probably not that guy. Who knows?