Where is Your Heart?

            As Thanksgiving Day approaches, many folks will be  in transit to a place they will spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends.  I suppose the most unusual place that I have spent Thanksgiving was in a hut in Africa.   Let me tell you more.  Back in the early 2000’s, our oldest daughter, Heather, was a Peace Corp volunteer in the African country of Zambia.  In 2005, I spent some days in Zambia at Thanksgiving  visiting her.   On that Thanksgiving Day, I spent my time literally going white-water rafting down the Zambezi River starting just below Victoria Falls (the largest waterfall in the world). 

            As we we were travelling by bus north from Victoria Falls back toward Lusaka (the capital of Zambia), I saw a sign by the road that said “Livingstone Memorial”.    The sign was pointing travelers to a memorial site for  the Scottish missionary, David Livingstone.  While I had heard of Livingstone, I did not realize that his missionary travels had taken him to Zambia.   Since we are travelling public transportation, we were not able to stop to visit the site but when I arrived back in the United States I learned more about David Livingstone and the site.   It seems that when David Livingstone died, he gave instructions that his heart was to be cut out of his body and buried in what is now known as Zambia.   His body, however, was transported to the coast of Africa and shipped back to London where it laid in repose before his funeral rites and burial in Westminister Abbey.   When you visit the site there in Zambia known as the Livingstone Memorial, you will find there a Mvula tree at the site where he actually died and where his heart is buried.  

            Where is your heart?   The easy answer is to say that your heart is located in the chest area of your body.   The harder answer is to consider what person, place, or thing that you really feel passionate about.     Jesus was not a cardiologist or a medical doctor, but he certainly knew something about people and about God.   He had a really good answer for my question and it is this:   “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”   (see Matthew 6:21).      What do your actions say about what  person, place, or thing that you really and truly feel passionate about in this Thanksgiving season?     Have a joy-filled week and a blessed Thanksgiving.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:   God, I give you thanks for all the blessings this day, this season, and this life offers me.  Grant that my life might truly show what is important to me and may it be the One from whom all blessings flow;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen.