MINISTER’S MESSAGE
“Lord fill me with your Spirit and make me more like you.” “Lord fill me with your Spirit and help me see the world the way that you see the world.” Over the past few months we have considered these first two of four short prayers. I now want to add the third—“Lord fill me with your Spirit and let my heart be broken by the things that break your heart.” This may be the hardest and most real of the three prayers. I don’t know about you, but I am quick to see what is wrong with the world, but that tends to mean I am quick to see what is wrong with my world, those things that impact upon me. It has always been easy for me to do. As a child I saw when my brothers had more milk in their cup and more french fries on their plate. I saw when the ref called a foul on me, but not on my opponent. I saw when the teacher was tougher on my paper than on my friends’.
What I have never been good at seeing is that while my brother’s glass was fuller than mine, someone’s glass was empty, that while I was getting a fouled called on me, somewhat else was sitting on the bench wanting to be in the game, that while the teacher was being tough on me, someone was crying to be noticed. I have had a hard time in my life seeing what real pain looks like, feeling what real need feels like, so much so that when a TV commercial exposes me to it I grab the remote control and flip the channel.
The promise of our faith is that God doesn’t do it my way. In the fullness of his love for us he entered into human existence and bore its brokenness, every bit of it. He knows what it is to be hungry, lonely, left out, left behind. He knows and so he sees. He knows and calls us to see. And so we pray, “Help us to see, to know, and even to feel, the pain that others feel so that our hearts might be broken, and that in such brokenness we might know restoration and healing.” That is how grace works; it’s in brokenness that we learn what wholeness really looks like. My prayer is that together we will come to know what wholeness not only looks like, but also what it feels like and so may pray together, “Lord fill us with your Spirit and let our hearts be broken by the things that break your heart.”
Blessings, Jonathan
