Thanks to growing and the wisdom of my sister in law, I’ve spent the last year learning to ask the question, “How is your heart?” A few weeks ago, a young dad was murdered in my neighbor. Not long ago a woman had too many cocktails at lunch and rear ended a sweet family ending the life of precious little girl, and this week a friend looked at me and said please pray for my friend who overdosed and is in a coma. It takes about seven seconds to hear or experience gut wrenching heart ache that did not come from a natural disaster, but the choices of humanity. We live up-close to real pain: Loss of life, loss of relationships, loss of marriages.
Jesus showed me a few years ago something fascinating in the story of Lazarus. I talk about it more in this Message on John 11, but here’s what I think I missed for years. Bodies and bank accounts, our situations on earth are temporary. Our hearts are eternal. And in our moments of crisis, Jesus cares about our circumstances, but His priority is our hearts. In John 11, Jesus meets both Mary and Martha to discuss their disappointment that He hadn’t come to heal their brother Lazarus when he was sick. Jesus waited until Lazarus had been dead for 4 days. In that culture, they believed even though your body had passed, your soul would remain alive, but after 4 days, even your soul was gone. It was past hope. Ever been there?
We find them in their raw humanity. Martha is bitter. Mary is broken. Martha asks questions. Mary weeps. He meets both of them where they are. And I love that while He knows He’s about to raise Lazarus from the dead, He weeps with Mary. He doesn’t judge her for her unbelief or doubt. He’s going to fix her circumstances, the reason she comes to Him, but in that moment His priority is her heart. I think we forget when we come to the feet of Jesus with our requests, His priority is to first heal our hearts and then deal with our circumstances.
Proverbs says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” I think so many of us have hoped for things, and in the waiting, our hearts have grown ill. We’ve become like these sisters, bitter or broken. Jesus desperately wants to meet us in that place, and He wants to heal our hearts. We are surrounded with people living their lives out of brokenness. And to numb the disappointment, the shame, the fear they medicate, pretend, and perform. For those of us who declare Jesus as our friend, our Savior, we have to live a life that is whole-hearted. That doesn’t happen until we allow Him to heal it. How is your heart?
I’m taking this summer to pray, to write, to dream, because I spent nearly a year weeping at His feet asking Him to make my heart whole. And He did. And he wants to do the same for you. He wants to hear your requests, the things you desperately need Him to fix. But more than that, He wants to go inside the darkest, hardest places you’ve closed off from the world; the places you’ve been afraid to let Him in, and allow Him to perform the greatest miracle of all..the miracle of transforming the inside of you to know you are loved, you are seen, and you are known.
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