Living with a broken heart
There have been boys (and men) who have broken my heart through not loving me the way I wanted them to, but that is not the kind of broken I am writing about here. There is a line in one of my favourite worship songs where we say to God,
'Break my heart for what breaks yours.'
Isn't that a terrifying incredible prayer to pray? We are asking the all-loving creator of the universe to leave us weeping in the face of all the injustice in the world. It's a tall order, and one I struggle with. I mean, I'm just a kid with a heart for intercession. How can little me make any kind of difference, when I get caught in the thing of having family members with cancer or being in rehab, or a friend's dying mother, or a friend who lost a baby, or a divorce-broken mama? And then I turn on the news, and hear about famine and war and oppression and murder and a girl with a bomb strapped to her neck. How can I make a difference? Because I want to. So much. I want to see the world changed and redeemed and learning how to love. (Can something break your heart if you don't love it? That might be a question for another day...) I get caught in the lies and the self-pity of being too small to change a thing.
Thing is, it's not up to me to save the world... That's not an abdication of duty, but a fact. Jesus already saved and loved the world. He is the ultimate model for living a life of radical love, and changing the world simply by loving it. So He's the one I'm going to follow. I'm going to continue to refuse to believe that I'm too small to change anything, and love the world one person at a time, and pray the big prayers, and see what He does with me.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
1 Cor 13:4-7 (MSG)
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