Break My Heart for What Breaks Yours, but . . .

Although I know that I wrote how important winter is in our lives a month or so back, I sure look forward to the springtime emerging.

I see glimmers of hope in the green grass that has recently sprung out of the ground in Arkansas. I know this post is relative to where you live, and some of you are still experiencing the tundra like-conditions of the winter, but please know that green grass and daffodils are on their way!

While I usually just find the closest cave and hibernate in the winter, this winter has been very different. I think I finally realized that I can survive winters and that I am not an animal. I do not have to sleep during the winter, both literally and metaphorically. Instead, as in the song, “Hosanna” that Hillsong sings, God has broken my heart for the things that break His. I see all around me devastation in the land. His people, who have been called by His name, are hurting and broken. As Beth Moore talk abouts in her book, Get out of that Pit, some of the hurting has come from people who have been thrown into the pit (ie.. abuse), some have slid in the pit, and some have jumped in themselves.

I want to find the longest rope that I can possibly find and make sure that everyone gets out, no matter how incredibly far they have fallen. I am not sure why I care so much… probably because I not only recognize the pit, I am not too far from where they are.

As the song goes, “Break my heart for what breaks yours,” I have learned, and am continuing to learn, that the next line should go, “but help me to know that I am not YOU, and cannot restore what is broken! Only You can as Joel 2:25 states,

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust have eaten.”

and again in Psalm 68: 7-10 He provided and promises to be there for the needy.

When you, God, went out before your people,
when you marched through the wilderness,
the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain,
before God, the One of Sinai,
before God, the God of Israel.
You gave abundant showers, O God;
you refreshed your weary inheritance.
Your people settled in it,
and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor.

I have spent much time worrying and being plagued by the sadness around me. Yet, while I have not turned a cold shoulder to the hurting, I realize that there is only so much I can do. I have to continually remind myself that I do not look anything like God. I am not powerful, I am not holy, and I surely do not have all of the answers that the people around me need.

While it is awesome to have a broken heart for the things, ideas, and people that God cares so deeply about, ultimately it is in God’s hands to restore those things, ideas and people. He wants us to love deeply and honor Him, but to place in His hands the burdens of this world.

Hosanna, send us Your Holy rope and pull us all up from where we are! Restore us! And Lord please “bring on” the springtime!