Heartbreaker

 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.  I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.  Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  Ephesians 3:14-19

Having an election every four years is one of those things that I believe our forefathers were really smart about.  They knew how we as people might change our minds like the wind, and while today you are very popular, you might have people wanting your head on a stick the next.  This can create some spirited debates that cross multiple lines.  As Christians, we vote with our conscious, but we do not always agree.  One might believe being pro-life is the greatest priority while others might lean toward poverty.  One talks about civil rights while the other talks about LGBT rights.  One might even say they are all important, but then the question becomes who do you know that checks all of the boxes?  Hearing all this at times stresses me out.  It was at that point I began to pray for peace and serenity.  In that prayer, I remembered something from long ago.  It contained a simple phrase.  Let my heart break for what makes Your heart break.  While this does not necessarily solve the debate, it gave me clarity as to what I can do going forward.

As we grow in Christ, a heart for God will provide us with the will to do what our minds know is God’s will.  Often times, we will struggle to determine what is best in a situation.  When faced with the dilemma of two or more seemingly even choices, Paul gives us a good basis for a course of action.  Going to our knees in search of spiritual guidance is an absolute must, and praying for God to instill in our hearts what He desires is important because while the mind can have the right idea, the idea fails to come into being without the drive of our heart.  Thus our prayers are not only for wisdom but also those things that motivate us to do His work.  I know there have been times where I did not do the right thing because my heart was not in it.  Yet when I pray to God to make my heart right, my mind and spirit align with it to make for an unshakable faith.  Spiritual growth becomes exponential when our hearts, minds, and spirits align with what God wants.  The mind knows the word, and the spirit is God in us.  But only the heart can move us where God wants us.

Our hearts, minds, and spirit must all be aligned for us to truly do God’s work here on Earth.  As we continue in our walk of faith, we know that God wants every bit of us.  But it is the heart that love comes from, and as Paul said, “Love never fails!” (1 Corinthians 8a)  So when our hearts our broken for what God sees as wrong, we will never be on the wrong side.  Where is your heart broken today?  Is it broken because of what you want or what God wants?  My prayer is that we look to God with our hearts open to enable Him to break our hearts for that which breaks His.  Amen.