When you work with people, you are working with depraved sinners in need of grace...in need of a Savior just like you. Sometimes in our loftier moments, we like to think of ourselves as being somehow removed...somehow better. In especially difficult occupations/roles, our pride makes us strive towards unbreakability. While as believers, we should be unshakable, sin must not come as a surprise, unbreakability is not a trait God wants to instill in us. In fact, He wants quite the opposite.
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise" -Psalm 51:17
When we accept, proclaim, and own Christ as our Savior we are reborn with a new, clean heart...made of flesh. This delicate, exposed heart could also be likened to porcelain. Fragile and easily broken. A broken heart is painful, but so beautiful in the eyes of the Lord. It's not a weakness...something to be ashamed of, NO, it is something to fall on your face before your Creator and praise Him for giving you the ability to feel. In this broken, vulnerable state, you can truly love, and love like Him.
God does not break us for His own sadistic pleasure. He breaks us to let us know He is alive, we are alive, and to rebuild us. The very moment we cease to feel, to experience heartache is the moment we cease to live. Compassion is often rooted, not in warm-fuzzies, but rather a broken heart...our fleshly heart cannot sit idly by while another suffers. Instead, it is moved to action.
Lord, may I never outlive my love for You or Your people. If ever I believe I am unbreakable, show me I am not. Thank You, Father, for every tear, heartbreak, every second of brokenness. Thank You for rebuilding, restoring and reviving me. Your mercy is undeserved, Your grace is endless, and Your love is incomprehensible. Amen.
The following song is one of my favorites. It is performed by Barlow Girls.
Broken heart
One more time
Pick yourself up
Why even cry
Broken pieces in your hands
Wonder how you'll make it whole
CHORUS:
You know You pray
This can't be the way
You cry You say
Some thing's gotta change
And mend this porcelain heart of mine
Of mine....
Someone said "A broken heart
Would sting at first then make you stronger"
You wonder why this pain remains
Were hearts made whole just to break
CHORUS:
Creator only you take brokenness
And create it into beauty once again
Chorus:
You know You pray
This can't be the way
You cry You say
Some thing's gotta change
You know You pray
This can't be the way
You cry You say
Some thing's gotta change
And mend this porcelain heart
Please mend this porcelain heart
Of mine of mine Creator mend this heart
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
all by myself with you
"I forgot to say out loud how beautiful you are to me...please, please, don't leave me. I always say how I don't need you, but it's always gonna come right back to this...please, don't leave me..." -Pink, Please Don't Leave Me
This is not a quote from a hymn...not even a modern worship song. It's a song sung by the pop artist, Pink. Funny thing is...it could have easily been something straight from Scripture.
Yesterday, I was talking with someone about how God's pursuing of me seems to have intensified lately. He's definitely wooing me all over again, appealing to my hopelessly romantic nature...a quality He Himself thoughtfully and lovingly created in me before there even was a me. There are times when I'm out jogging or hiking or even just walking through a parking lot, were it seems God brings my attention to some absolutely breathtakingly beautiful bit of nature and whispers softly, "For you, beloved."
Usually, my heart is easily re-captivated by my Father and King during these moments, but it's the in-between times that led me to start with the quote at the top of this post. How often do you stop and just praise God for His beauty? His grace? His faithfulness? His unending, undeserved love? Not nearly enough, I'm afraid. Fear not, for I am in that boat with you. None of us...not a one, could love Him back as fiercely, as rightly and passionately as He loves us. We do quite the opposite at times, actually. It's almost laughable how so often in the Old Testament we read, "...and the people again sinned in the sight of the Lord" or something along those lines. On one page we read of some amazing blessing God bestowed upon His children, then we turn the page (or even just move to the next paragraph) and read about how those same people have forgotten their Creator, the very Source of their blessings, and sinned yet again. There are times when I read passages like that and shout, "Seriously?!!" Yes, seriously. We're like that.
So often we try to live by our own might, our own power, and feel as if God is here to serve us, not the other way around. We get to the point were we think we've "got it", then we're proven horribly, horribly wrong. Then it is at that point, when we're setting up shop in Rock-bottomville, that we cry out, "please don't leave me!!" Can you imagine how much patience God has to have when it comes to us? It's just like when a child says, "I want to do it all by myself, Daddy" all the while they cling to their father's hand. I've even caught myself saying, "I want to be by myself...with people." We say we want to be left alone...as long as we don't have to do it alone. God's gotta laugh at that sometimes.
Anywho, I think the following hymn says a lot of what I'm thinking at this moment, enjoy, for it is one of my favorites. Pay close attention to the verse that says, "prone to wander...". Good stuff
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
by: Robert Robinson, 1758
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
This is not a quote from a hymn...not even a modern worship song. It's a song sung by the pop artist, Pink. Funny thing is...it could have easily been something straight from Scripture.
Yesterday, I was talking with someone about how God's pursuing of me seems to have intensified lately. He's definitely wooing me all over again, appealing to my hopelessly romantic nature...a quality He Himself thoughtfully and lovingly created in me before there even was a me. There are times when I'm out jogging or hiking or even just walking through a parking lot, were it seems God brings my attention to some absolutely breathtakingly beautiful bit of nature and whispers softly, "For you, beloved."
Usually, my heart is easily re-captivated by my Father and King during these moments, but it's the in-between times that led me to start with the quote at the top of this post. How often do you stop and just praise God for His beauty? His grace? His faithfulness? His unending, undeserved love? Not nearly enough, I'm afraid. Fear not, for I am in that boat with you. None of us...not a one, could love Him back as fiercely, as rightly and passionately as He loves us. We do quite the opposite at times, actually. It's almost laughable how so often in the Old Testament we read, "...and the people again sinned in the sight of the Lord" or something along those lines. On one page we read of some amazing blessing God bestowed upon His children, then we turn the page (or even just move to the next paragraph) and read about how those same people have forgotten their Creator, the very Source of their blessings, and sinned yet again. There are times when I read passages like that and shout, "Seriously?!!" Yes, seriously. We're like that.
So often we try to live by our own might, our own power, and feel as if God is here to serve us, not the other way around. We get to the point were we think we've "got it", then we're proven horribly, horribly wrong. Then it is at that point, when we're setting up shop in Rock-bottomville, that we cry out, "please don't leave me!!" Can you imagine how much patience God has to have when it comes to us? It's just like when a child says, "I want to do it all by myself, Daddy" all the while they cling to their father's hand. I've even caught myself saying, "I want to be by myself...with people." We say we want to be left alone...as long as we don't have to do it alone. God's gotta laugh at that sometimes.
Anywho, I think the following hymn says a lot of what I'm thinking at this moment, enjoy, for it is one of my favorites. Pay close attention to the verse that says, "prone to wander...". Good stuff
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
by: Robert Robinson, 1758
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)