Some years ago I underwent a heart procedure. My heartbeat had the regularity of a telegraph operator sending Morse code. The cardiologist inserted two cables in my heart, one was a camera, the other was an ablation tool. To “ablate” is to burn. Yes, burn, cauterize, singe, brand. And to use my doctor’s coinage, it would destroy the “misbehaving” parts of my heart. I tried to be witty. “As long as you’re in there, could you take your little blowtorch to some of my greed, selfishness, and guilt?” He smiled, “Sorry, that’s out of my pay grade.”
Indeed it was, but it’s not out of God’s. He is in the business of changing hearts. We’d be wrong to think it happens overnight. But we’d be equally wrong to assume change never happens at all. “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared,” the apostle Paul wrote. (Titus 2:11). And it has appeared to change our lives.
