The ways of the world fail to heal a broken heart.
Tomorrow, Good Friday we remember why Christ came to this world. This world leaves our hearts broken and torn as we fail to find meaning. The hand of God is reaching out on the Cross to heal our failing hearts. I have to admit that the past few days my heart has been broken and torn to shreds. My heart has hurt and yearned for understanding.
It all started Sunday night while sleepily watching Celebrity Apprentice. Yeah you heard me right. The task at hand was to create a viral video for a product, and Donald Trump turned to the creator of one of the top rated blog sites on the net, Perez Hilton (Warning the link contains adult oriented content, but feel it nessasary to post a link. I could easily point to many others.) for analysis of the videos. Perez has made a living out of following everything that goes on in the life celebrities, the good and the bad. My point here is not tor rail on Perez, but I will come back to why this started a week of heart ache.
Then on Tuesday I read this article in Newsweek , and I was immediately struck by the first paragraph.
The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.
As I thought through the implications of the article, a question continued to poor through my head. Why do we fail? So in the first live blog on Philter48 that was the topic. I talked about the preaching of false gospels of prosperity, and how once people realize that they are not the truth they turn from those teachings to something else to fix their problems.
Come on, look at what we do in this life. We want the quick fix, the easy get, make it rich, do it now, do what you want, do what feels good, to make us feel better. Oh and did I mention we want it now. So when a new Oprah or Dr Phil, Diet Pill or Nip/Tuck come along we latch on for the quick fix. When a church teaches you can have it all now we latch on for the quick fix. When those fail to resolve our issues and problems, we don’t turn to a never failing source of Truth, no we justify it was the product or the philosophy was wrong, and quickly turn to the next thing.
We even try and make ourselves look and feel better by living on the successes and celebrating failures of those who we perceive to have it all. Web sites like Perez Hilton’s allow us a way to set celebrities up as Idols. We want what they have. The perfect body, the money, and the sex. Then in an instant we muse over the drug addictions of Celebrities and treat them like hero’s when they seek attention and use rehab for publicity. Only to see them turn back to the lives they were leading, because not even the rehab could fix what was hurting their life. You can look no further then Perez Hiltons blog to see what I am talking about. Our mindless fascination with watching the elite fall, because we ourselves are just as screwed up, and find ourselves justifying our actions based on the elite that are failing themselves.
There was a man who was the elite of the elite. He would have been all over Perez Hilton’s web site, if Perez had been around at the time. He too wrote about the things of this world we turn to fix our hurts, and satisfy our pleasures.
I thought in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." But that also proved to be meaningless. "Laughter," I said, "is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?" I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.
I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well—the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
His name was Solomon and he was the most powerful king of his time. He had it all could do all and spend all. More money the Bill Gates or Warren Buffet together. This was written close to the end of his life and he was remembering all he had done and amassed while king. Yet none of it fixed what hurt his heart. Even all the pleasure an wealth failed to find healing for the hurt in his heart. Everything he tried failed.
Well yesterday I read this blog post by InternetMonk ,and this one sentence just lifted me up.
When broken people, miserably failing people, continue to belong to, believe in and worship Jesus, God is happy.
In all of our wanting and desire for the quick fix we continue to miss the point of Jesus’ ministry. Why? Because Jesus is not a quick fix. A person has to believe follow and be patient. We have to shut up lose our self control and let Him work. We have to give up the get it now and wait on His timing. We have to throw away our goals, and stop setting up idols in favor of His plan. We have to stop looking and laughing at the brokenness of others and start rejoicing in the fact that there is a Savior that in His timing will repair our brokenness.
I can point you to many scriptures references and passages that proves this to be so, but I don’t think I should have to copy and paste the entire bible to this post. The Bible however is evidence of the truth in and of itself. As iMonk says in the blog post linked above, the bible is full of broken people just like us. God used those broken people to fulfill his plans, and carry forth his message. He uses broken people just like me to carry the message of His Truth to the world. By that I am comforted, to know that in my brokenness, while nothing of this world will fix my broken heart there is a God who will fix it, and use me to deliver His Truth.
The world is hurting for a cure to its ills. Try one thing and fail, another and fail. There is only one truth that never fails Jesus
Easter is in 4 days. Tomorrow though we remember the death of Christ. Tomorrow we remember the reason God sent his Son to this earth.
II Cor 5:21 21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
I have written many times on this verse. You can read one of my older posts here.
Do you want to honor that sacrifice and turn to the One that can heal the hurts, and to a truth that will not fail? Do you want a great Physician to sow the hole in your hurting heart. Then we must honor the sacrifice made by God, and live our lives to the example of that sacrifice.
Roman 12:1 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
Ultimately we the world must humble itself to the Truth of Christ. To the One who never fails. For as Solomon says “Everything under the sun is meaningless” . However, it is when we allow ourselves to be under the Son of God that our hurting heart finds meaning.
