Growth

Heart Broken

There is much in this life that causes anguish:

  • A favorite sports team loses in the championship;
  • We misplace a prized possession;
  • Someone that we care about treats us poorly.

The list could go on.

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Talk to any given person during the day (or simply read a collection of Facebook statuses), and it is easy to see that we are prone to hurt feelings, disappointment and declarations of broken hearts. Even people who declare that they aren’t the “touchy-feeling” type are still likely to vent their angst when things don’t go as they desire.

Yet in all of this I find myself wondering if the things that we treasure and the disappointments that we concern ourselves with are the same things that Christ would focus on if He was walking this Earth.

After all, when He did walk this Earth, His sadness is recorded twice. Once, when His good friend dies He weeps as He sees the sadness of those who grieve the loss.  In his commentary John MacArthur writes, “His tears here were not generated out of mourning, since He was to raise Lazarus, but out of grief for a fallen world entangled in sin-caused sorrow and death” (p. 1396).Secondly, Christ cries as He looks out upon Jerusalem and reflects on their unbelieving hearts (Luke 19:41-44). When people persecuted Him, we don’t see Him feeling sorry for Himself. When His disciples walk away, we don’t read a record of His tears. Instead His heart breaks for the toll of sin and for those who don’t believe in Him.

It’s a convicting realization. Claiming to treasure Jesus above all else means treasuring the things that He does. Yet too often my disappointment and tears reveals that  my heart is not broken by the consequences of sin and for the loss of this world, but instead by  my own priorities and concerns.

In Hillsong United’s song “Hosanna”  the artists sing, “Break my heart for what breaks Yours. Everything I am for Your Kingdom’s cause. As I walk from Earth into eternity.”

May increasingly the cry of our hearts echo these words.

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Growth

The Right Perspective

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We might not think that’s the case, but my guess is that if we were to tally every time we gave our perspective on a situation in any given day, we would find that there were a lot more tallies at the end of the day than we anticipated. We are quick to issue a verdict, to offer our perspective, or to express our opinion. Even more so, people are often eager to ask for such insight as they navigate their current challenges. More often than not, we want to hear what other people have to say, sometimes with the express purpose of confirming what we already think is right.

The challenge is that many times other’s people perspective is simply that – their perspective. It is not rooted in anything beyond them, but is based on their experiences, the lessons that they’ve learned, or maybe even how they feel on that particular day. What is considered “right” then is not based on some objective standard of truth, but is based on their own insights and opinions.

This is why it is important that we remember what A.W. Tozer wrote about how we can be assured that we get the right perspective. He stated:

We get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God. We are right when, and only when, we stand in a right position relative to God, and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other position. 

In other words, unless the perspective we espouse is the perspective of God as revealed in His Word, we are in danger of having our opinion become the standard by which we judge an action. Consequently, if those we ask for advice aren’t looking from things in “a right positive relative to God” then it is likely that their advice is similarly wrongly constructed.  Our eyes must be firmly fixed on Him, and He must be the standard by which all other perspectives are evaluated, and considered for acceptance or rejection.

This is a hard thing in a world where we are taught that “everyone is entitled to their own opinion.” However, perhaps this is one of the reasons that Scripture tells us we should be “slow to speak” (Jam. 1:19). If we were, maybe we would be more likely to consider first how God views a given situation, rather than issuing our pronouncement of it.

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