Psalm 31:17 "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite
heart you, God, will not despise."
Isaiah 57:15 "For this is what the high and exalted One says—he who lives forever,
whose name is holy: “I live in a
high and holy place, but also with the one who is
contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart
of the contrite."
At some point or another, I'm 99% sure that most of us have seen our hearts
as the above picture depicts. Borken, tattered, pierced through, shattered.
Sometimes a kind word or a 'bandaid' helped. Sometimes there actually needed to
be some intense work of the Holy Spirit to stitch the Love of God over through
and over a gaping wound. Sometimes, it cracks right down the middle and we feel
like it's breaking in two - emotions go flying love/hate - kindness/bitterness,
etc. The wound may be fresh and very fragile because the would just occurred or
it was just uncovered from a long time ago or we remember something that we did
and that caused the crack to form. We don't think we can let anyone touch it
because we just know it will totally breaking apart. So, maybe we isolate or put
on one of those fake smiles when we're around people. But God.... He
knows.
We may not want anyone to get near 'that' place, yet Isaiah says that God
is with those of a broken and contrite heart. He's not standing in the
shadows. He's WITH us.
Now, I know we all understand what 'broken' means. We've probably broken
something in our lives - a dish - a cup - a bone - etc....
I've read this verse, quoted this verse and never looked up the word
contrite... just figured it had something to do with being broken. So, since I
do like dictionaries and finding out what anything means, I looked these too
words up.
It says the following in Merriam-Websters on-line dictionary (yeah, I got a
little lazy):
Broken: 1. violently separated into parts : shattered.
Contrite: 2. feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for a sin or
shortcoming.
When we repent of our wrongs, our hearts break when the Lord allows us
to see His broken heart that was so full of love for us that He poured out
everything He had so that we wouldn't be in bondage to anything or enter into
sin in some other way. He had a violent ending to His life, so when our hearts
are full or sorrow or remorse over something the Lord has shown us as sin, it
feels like our hearts are shattered.
I'm talking about willful sins and also when something has been done
against us and we REACT in a sinful way. We don't repent of the wrong done to
us, we only repent of any sin we may have enter into afterwards.
For instances like these above, it requires trusting
Jesus, that He is not going to condemn you and He is not going to hurt you
further. He wants to forgive and heal. It's good to have someone else with
you, if needed. That requires a whole LOT of trust and, yeah, I know, we
can't/won't let ourselves 'go there' sometimes- we don't want feel the pain. But
if we let pain, disappointment, sadness, bitterness or hate take root (whether
against others or against ourselves) - our hearts most likely will become
infected. It may just get to the point where the infection is so deep, we will
either die (spiritually, emotionally, mentally - sometimes even physically) or
it forces us to seek help.
We'll be discussing these further during this week. For
now, let the Lord being to soften the soil of your heart so that He can extend
His grace and mercy to you.
Let it Rain - Michael W. Smith
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