Do you know anyone who has had a heart attack? Have you ever had a heart attack?
Not fun.
Heart attacks seem to sneak up on people and…bang, you’re down. As you know from previous “How’s The Viz?”, my mother died of a heart attack when I was a boy. I have inherited her condition and would be dead of a heart attack if not for a wonderful drug called Crestor.
Heart attacks don’t really “sneak up” on people though. Sure they catch people by surprise, but what ultimately causes the heart attack takes a while to build up – they tend to happen after years of neglect.
In most cases, heart attacks are caused by the build-up of “plaque” in arteries. Likewise, in our non-physical hearts, in the depths of our being, there can be “P.L.A.C.” build-up in our spiritual arteries that causes a heart attack.
What is the “P.L.A.C.” that causes a heart attack? What are those things that cause our hearts to more slowly die? I recognize that there can be extremely traumatic wounding that suddenly impacts people’s hearts, but I want to address the slow decay and death of our heart. To a certain degree what Albert Schweitzer was referring to when he said,
“The real tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he yet still lives.”
“P.L.A.C.” represents Pride, Laziness, Apathy and Complacency:
Pride: Scripture tells us that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Our pride causes us to refuse to repent, to come to God and ask for help. We refuse to surrender ourselves to Him and His Truth. We refuse to recognize our need and seek input from others, or receive other people’s perspective. We may assert that we don’t really need any help because there are really no issues to deal with.
Laziness: We may recognize our need and ask for help, but not be willing to put the work in to move into greater faith, hope, strength, healing, etc. We are in the grip of passivity. We must work out our salvation – we must “appropriate” all that Jesus purchased for us, that we received by His grace. It takes work to discipline ourselves to meditate on the truth, to spend time in prayer and solitude, to worship, to study, to walk in discipleship and restoration with others, to apply what we are taught.
Apathy: Apathy is the “absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement, and the lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting”. Apathy hamstrings our passion. We must choose to engage and choose to care. Sure, sometimes our emotions can feel very dead, but we can still wield our will well and choose to walk in openness and vulnerability, choose to take action, choose to worship when our hearts feels dead, choose to be with others who carry a passion that we want to carry.
Complacency: Complacency is “a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; a self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation or condition”. Scripture tells us that the complacency of fools will be their destruction. Complacency says that things are “good enough”, and all the while we are dying inside. There is often pride wrapped up in complacency because we can think we are “right”, or “good” and all the while oblivious to our spiritual or emotional bankruptcy.
Let us choose to combat the “P.L.A.C.” in our lives that ultimately kills our hearts. Stop the slow decay and death of your heart by choosing humility, working out your salvation, choosing to care, and choosing to live in humility and openness to combat a self-satisfaction and lack of awareness of the issues in you that others can see so clearly.
Remove the “P.L.A.C.” in your spiritual arteries so the life of Christ can freely flow in and through you.
I Peter 5:5-6
“…All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may life you up in due time.”
Proverbs 24:33, 34
“A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.”
Psalm 42:5
“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
Proverbs 1:32
“For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them”