The Power Of broken Hearts

A few months ago, I was driving to work one morning, listening to the radio. Brandon Heath’s Song “Give Me Your Eyes” was playing, and I was singing along. It was just a normal drive to work. Then I did something extreme, perhaps even reckless. I stopped singing along and allowed the chorus of the song to become a prayer. For those who are unfamiliar with the song, here is the chorus:

Give me your eyes for just one second.
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing.
Give me your love for humanity.
Give me your arms for the broken hearted,
The ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me you heart for the ones forgotten.
Give me your eyes so I can see.

As I began to pray that chorus, a thought suddenly popped into my mind, in the way that I’ve come to associate with the voice of the Holy Spirit. That thought was, “If I do, it’ll break your heart.” I must admit, I reflected on that for the rest of that drive, resolved to let God break my heart, and then stopped praying such things. After all, who wants a broken heart? Broken hearts hurt. Broken hearts are for depressing love songs and chick flicks. I certainly would rather not have a broken heart. Thus, I gradually forgot about the entire episode, only being vaguely reminded of it when I heard that particular song again.

Last week, however, I was in a pizza place with my family while returning from a visit to the in-laws, and there was a relic from the cultural past: a juke box. It was playing music that had evidently been selected by one of the few other groups in the restaurant, and they seemed to have a taste for hard rock. As a former head banger, rock doesn’t usually bother me, but amid the almost incomprehensible lyrics of one particular song was one phrase that I could, unfortunately understand perfectly. It was profane and offensive, and I started to feel offended. In fact, I started to mention the offensiveness of the song to my wife, and I was not forming a favorable impression of the people who would select such a song. Then the inner voice spoke again, telling me that if I could see things like God did, I would weep instead of being angry. He heard the same song I did, just as He hears and sees everything, but instead of angering Him, it broke His heart.

The problem with not having our hearts broken is that refusing to have a broken heart keeps us from the heart of God, whose heart is constantly broken by our sin. We can either feel spiritually superior to the lost world, or we can be brokenhearted enough to reach out to them in love, but not both. A broken heart has no room for pride. Show me a person with a sign saying, “God hates fags,” and I’ll show you a person with an unbroken heart. Spiritual pride is absolutely antithetical to the broken-hearted God who sent His Son to die for us “while we were yet sinners.”

A broken heart will cost us not only our pride, but also our apathy. I recently finished the book “The Hole In Our Gospel,” by Rich Stearns, president of World Vision. Stearns clearly documents the biblical mandate to care for the poor, the plentiful resources that the Western Church has to help them, and the mechanisms waiting to channel those resources of time, energy, and money to the people who need them. He also documents the appalling lack of action on the part of the American church. How can we stand to walk away while thousands of people die preventable deaths each day? Simply put, we don’t care enough to do anything about it. Our hearts are not broken. We cannot hear the thousands of families mourning their dead. We do not have to dispose of the bodies, or hold their hands while they die of neglect. It doesn’t touch us, so most of us do nothing. Even those of us who do something, like my wife and I, usually touch one or two lives among thousands. We dole out drops into the bucket and feel good, while God’s heart breaks.

If we would allow our hearts to be broken, it could change the world. A thousand broken hearts could save several thousand lives, reach multitudes for the gospel, and eliminate a vast amount of suffering. It wouldn’t be easy. It wouldn’t be quick. It wouldn’t be painless. It would, however, be glorious.