Half a Heart
Aiden Rodgers was born last year in Louisiana with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. This malady effects about one in 6,000 births. The left part of the heart will underdevelop, which causes it to stop growing all together. Aiden’s parents sought help with the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.
I am very thankful that God has allowed medical researchers to develop the ability to operate on such small children with the success they have. The parents certainly appreciate that blessing. Aiden was safe, as long as he was in his mother’s womb. It’s when he is born and the umbilical cord is cut and he has to start breathing on his own that trouble starts.
Up until recently, babies like Aiden would have died soon after birth. Aiden received his first surgery at four days old. He went home six weeks later. Could you imagine how stressful it would be on the parents over the next several weeks as you wondered what might happen? Young parents do not sleep well as it is.
Aiden had his second surgery at four months old and went home two weeks after that. He’ll have a third surgery between the ages of 2 and 3. What remarkable technology and skill God has allowed our surgeons to develop so they could bless Aiden with a chance at life.
You cannot live with only half a heart. And you cannot serve God effectively half-heartedly. The expression “whole heart” is used eight times in the NASV. Hezekiah prayed to God, for example, in 2 Kings 20:3: “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight” (cf. Isaiah 38:3).
David encouraged his son, Solomon, to “serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts” (1 Chronicles 28:9). On that same occasion, the Israelites worshiped God and “made their offering to the Lord with a whole heart” (vs 9).
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God told Jeremiah (24:7) that once the Israelites returned from their 70-year exile in Babylon, they would serve the Lord, returning to Him “with their whole heart.”
The expression “whole heart” is actually found an additional dozen times in the ESV. David prays that God will “grant to Solomon my son a whole heart that he may keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, performing all, and that he may build the palace for which I have made provision” (1 Chronicles 29:19).
We are to “give thanks” with our whole heart (Psa. 9:1; 86:12; 111:1; 138:1). We should seek God with our “whole heart” (Psa. 119:2, 10). We should keep His commandments with our whole heart (Psa. 119:34, 69). We should pray with our whole heart (Psa. 119:145).
In the New Testament, we are encouraged to serve God, “not slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (Romans 12:11). Louw & Nida write that “fervent” in spirit is an idiom that means “to boil in the spirit, to show great eagerness toward something, to show enthusiasm, to commit oneself.”
So, serving the Lord with a “whole heart,” involves: focus, concentration, enthusiasm, intention, zeal. Serve the Lord with a whole heart and He will bless you with His whole heart.
–Paul Holland
