The Heart That Had to Let Go

On December 3, 1967, Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. His patient, Louis Washkansky, was dying. His heart was beyond repair — no medication, no rest, no lifestyle change could save him. The only hope was radical: remove the failing heart entirely and replace it with one from a donor.

Think about what that required of Washkansky. He had to consent to having his own heart — the organ that had carried him through fifty-four years of life — cut from his chest. He had to trust that another heart, one that had never beaten inside him before, would somehow sustain his life. He had to place himself completely in the hands of a surgeon and believe that what seemed impossible was, in fact, his only path to survival.

Faith works the same way. We come to God with hearts that are failing — scarred by sin, weakened by grief, exhausted from trying to save ourselves. And God does not merely patch us up. As the prophet Ezekiel declared, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

Faith is not gripping harder with a heart that is giving out. Faith is opening your chest to the Great Physician and trusting Him to give you a heart that actually works.