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Coronary Christians

Jordan Rubin

In his devotional “Life as a Vapor” John Piper writes a section titled “A Call for Coronary Christians” and part of this gives an appreciation for the consistent and essential role of the heart. It reads, “I am glad for my heart. It just keeps on being a humble, quiet servant—during good days and bad days, happy and sad, high and low, appreciated and unappreciated. It never lets me down. Coronary Christians are like the heart in the causes they serve. Adrenal Christians, on the other hand, are like adrenaline—giving a spurt of energy and then fatigue. What the Church needs today is marathoners, not just sprinters--people who find the pace to finish the lifelong race.”

Piper’s observations are directed mostly at the Church on how to pace themselves, how to be consistent, and how to faithfully complete life on earth—but he also recognizes how we may take our hearts for granted as they continually beat--signaling our pulse, blood flow, and our very lives. And he’s right. We sometimes take our heart’s constant functioning for granted. In fact, the average heart beats 100,000 times a day, pumping about 2,000 gallons of blood—and we don’t even think about it. (And that blood is on a 60,000 mile journey circulating throughout the body—with each drop of blood containing 250 million cells. Wow!) What’s more, in an average lifetime the heart will beat about 3 billion times.

Heart Disease

The heart is a focal point of life and, unfortunately, a malfunction of the heart and/or circulatory system is a potential killer that effects over 40% of the American population1 —a higher amount than any other injury or illness, including cancer. Heart disease has been our number one cause of death for over a hundred years.2

Additionally, heart disease is no respecter of gender or race. In fact, many women believe that their greatest health menace might be in breast cancer, but women’s death rate from heart disease is eight times higher than women’s death rates from breast cancer.3,4 Heart disease claims nearly 500,000 women’s lives a year, according to the American Heart Association—more women’s lives than the next seven causes of death combined.

But what leads to heart disease? One of the key components is plaque. Plaque is a deposit of proteins, fats (including cholesterol), immune system cells and other components that accumulate on the inner walls of the coronary arteries and hardens over time. If you have plaque building up in your coronary arteries, you run a risk of developing heart disease.

High Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a waxy, fatlike substance that your body needs to function normally. Cholesterol is naturally present in cell walls or membranes everywhere in the body including the brain, nerves, muscles, skin, liver, intestines, and heart. Your body uses cholesterol to produce many hormones, vitamin D, and the bile acids that help to digest fat. It takes only a small amount of cholesterol in the blood to meet these needs. If you have too much cholesterol in your bloodstream, the excess may be deposited in arteries, including the coronary (heart) arteries, where it is one of many contributing factors that cause the signs and symptoms of heart disease.