The Cure For the Broken Heart

Mike Leake

I did something really silly awhile back and I’m fortunate that it didn’t turn out worse than it did. I was in a rush at home. The kids were screaming, the Royals were playing, my mind was somewhere else and I needed to get a pizza out of the oven before it burned. I was so distracted that I reached into the oven and grabbed the pan with my bare hand. My hand immediately recoiled and the throbbing pain rebuked my ignorant brain.

You touch something hot and everything in your body runs away from that pain. We are hard-wired to avoid pain in order to keep ourselves alive. I think our hearts work the same way, and that often stunts our spiritual growth.

Our hearts get distracted and we go about life, sometimes without much thought of the Lord. And then He’ll catch up to us. Through various methods—most often His Word—God will cause our hearts to break with deep conviction. God is so radically dedicated to our enjoyment of Him that He will do whatever is necessary to rip out of our hearts sin and unbelief and to replace it with passionate worship. That truth is a painful one.

Our natural instinct is to run away from a broken heart. We feel terrible and our hearts are broken. So we’ll run away from the pain. We’ll try various methods to numb the sting of conviction. And before we know it our tender heart starts to harden up a bit. We feel a bit better but something is numb and callous inside of us.

John Bunyan spoke of this danger in his little book The Acceptable Sacrifice. He cautioned his hearers against a hardened heart this way:

Take heed that you choke not those convictions that at present do break your hearts, by laboring to put those things out of your minds which were the cause of such convictions; but rather nourish and cherish those things in a deep and sober remembrance of them. Think, therefore, with thyself thus, What was it that at first did wound my heart? And let that still be there, until, by the grace of God, and the redeeming blood of Christ, it is removed.

In other words when we are convicted and our heart is broken—let us not be satisfied with any remedy but the One remedy that the Father has provided. I know that conviction and a broken heart hurts. But don’t run away from God and try to lick your wounds. Instead run to the Lord in all your brokenness and find in Christ the only remedy for your wounded heart.

—

Photo source: here

Don’t Buy The Gospel; Share it!

Nick Horton

Have we really been reduced to bumper stickers and magnets? Do we need Christian mints, Christian cards, Christian keychains, Christian Mirrors, Christian everything?

When I walk into the average Christian Bookstore I am confronted with a lot of things that aren’t books. Most of the above trinkets, baubles, and chachkies dominate the store. It makes me stop to wonder, what does that say about Christianity in America? Have we reached a point where our Christianity is just something else we can accessorize?

Ok breathe. I came out on the attack. Think with me.

Why do we buy these things to advertise our faith? Why is it that a Christian bookstore carries all this.. stuff?

Friends our faith is in a living God who took on flesh and subjected himself to the futility of human existence and to die unjustly at the hands of his own creation. Not only did he die, but he rose again in victory and glory and through him, through Jesus Christ, we are offered the righteousness of God. Not only has he saved us from our just punishment but he will bring us to himself when we die or when he returns. We get to be with him, in glory, with unveiled faces and without fear of his wrath.

He offers us unimaginable joy. Joy so amazing words cannot describe it. We have been saved from eternal conscious torment by God. He didn’t have to do it. He wasn’t compelled to do so by anything we did. It was purely out of his grace that he did so. Grace, Grace, God’s Grace! Grace that is greater than all our sins!

Our response to this should be joy! Yet, we get complacent. We buy a few trinkets to soothe our consciences that we don’t share this joy with others. We cover the veneer of shame with baubles to say we live for God without us opening our mouths to say we live for God.

When next you reach for that thing to wear or display that says “I am a Christian” please consider not buying it. Consider sharing the Gospel with someone. That joy that you have in your heart wasn’t meant to be locked up. It was meant to shine brightly. It wasn’t meant to burst forth from your lips. That joy was meant to be sung, spoken, and lived out.

Don’t buy a thing; share life.

 

Today in Blogworld 10.15.15

Mike Leake

How Blogging Can Adversely Affect a Seminary Student

Not just seminary students. I think blogging/social media really does impact our ability to think slowly and critically. And it’s a costly exchange.

7 Ways to Support Your Pastor on Sunday

These are very helpful. Don’t critique and don’t share something you want us to remember are big practical ones. But the most impactful is to pray. Get that and all the others aren’t a big deal.

Have Churches Been Doing Youth Ministry Wrong Forever?

I believer there are a few presuppositions in here that I might not share. However, I think the solution here is a good one. I always love it when folks offer solutions and not just further information on why there is a problem.

The Pastor’s Wife: A Helper Fit For Him

This is a question my wife and I have been trying to work through. I really appreciate the work of Jordan Sparks here.

This little girl GETS weddings. This is so my little Hannah:

In Counseling, Genre Matters

Mike Leake

After a long silence the empty-eyed man opens up…

“I feel like darkness is my only friend. I’m enduring blow after blow from the Almighty and I just don’t know why. I’m confused. I’m baffled. I’m angry. I cry out to God but He doesn’t answer me. He’s silent. All I get from Him is wrath and terror. I don’t think I’ve had a good day in years. I’m helpless.”

You have a hard time processing this overflow of emotions. There is so much in there which is simply not true.

1. Saying darkness is his only friend is an insult to the church, you (his friend), and even to the Lord Jesus.

2. As a believer saying that God is silent simply isn’t true. Look to the Cross. He spoke volumes there.

3. As a believer you aren’t going to get an ounce of God’s wrath. It isn’t God’s wrath this guy is experiencing. Whatever it is…but it isn’t God’s wrath.

4. This guy was chipper even a couple weeks ago. Now he’s talking like he hasn’t been happy in years. So what was that good time you had with him a few Tuesday’s ago? Was it just a sham?

5. He isn’t helpless. As a believer He has the power of the Holy Spirit residing in Him. He ought to suck it up and live in the freedom that Jesus purchased instead of wallowing in this self pity.

You’ve probably got about fifty other things you could be offended by. There is so much of this guys theology that could be rebuked. His view of God in this moment is so terribly small. You see this. You know what would help him. He just needs to do a few things and you are certain he won’t be feeling like darkness is his only friend.

And so you speak truth into this guys life. You rebuke the Psalm 88 right out of him.

—

Here is my question for you. Have you been a faithful expositor and counselor of God’s Word? Have you spoken truth?

—

I don’t believe you have, for one simple reason. Genre matters.

Any good Bible student knows that you read Paul’s letters differently than you read through the Psalms. If you read through Paul’s letters as if his exhortations are just a fine example of creative writing and holy suggestions, then you aren’t reading them rightly. He isn’t writing for poetic intentions. He’s writing to be analyzed, processed, applied, and lived out.

In the same way if you read poetry as if its intention is to give you theological precision, then you are going to emerge with a jacked up view of God. He’ll have giant chicken wings which casts a mighty shadow (Psalm 57:1). He’ll also have a big beefy arm (Ps. 89:10) and a real shiny face (Num. 6:24). You read poetry to feel theology not to write a theological text book.

Judging poetry with the same yard stick you’d use to judge an epistle or historical narrative makes you a faulty expositor. In the same way I believe judging someone who is spouting out a Psalm with the yardstick of theological precision, is to not be a faithful counselor.

His psalm was to help you feel with him. He was inviting you into his story. He isn’t asking you to analyze him for a theology test. Sure, a wise counselor might pick up on some of these faulty views and save them for later…save them for when he starts speaking to you in epistolary form. But while he’s spouting Psalms just hug him. Feel with him. Relate with him. Enter into his suffering. Own his Psalm as your own.

Being a good listener means respecting genre. Don’t force the suffering man into the only genre you feel comfortable with. Let him speak in his genre. If you’ve got to give counsel then do it in his language—in his genre.

Genre matters. It matters in Bible reading. And it matters in counseling.

—

Photo source: here