The Courage to Receive a New Heart

On December 3, 1967, Dr. Christiaan Barnard stood in an operating room at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, preparing to attempt what no surgeon had ever done — a human heart transplant. But the courage that morning did not belong only to Barnard. It belonged equally to his patient, Louis Washkansky, a fifty-four-year-old grocer with end-stage heart failure who knew he was dying and said yes to the unknown.

Think about what Washkansky agreed to. Surgeons would stop his heart, cut it from his chest, and replace it with the heart of a stranger. There were no case studies to review, no survival statistics to weigh. Every medical authority said it could not be done. Washkansky looked at his failing heart, looked at the impossible offer before him, and chose to trust the hands of his surgeon.

The prophet Ezekiel records God making a remarkably similar offer: "I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of new flesh." That promise requires the same courage Washkansky showed — the willingness to admit that what we have is failing and to let God do the surgery only He can perform.

Some of you are clutching a heart that is barely beating — bitter, exhausted, full of old wounds. The Great Physician is offering you a new one. The only courage required is the courage to lie down on the table and let Him work.