Dear one,
Almost daily I read these words: “PRAY for Yahweh’s/ Yeshua’s heart.” Apart from being idiosyncratic, this reminder is my paraphrase of Robert Pierce’s prayer:
“Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart.”
In part, my modification of his words is an admission that I earnestly struggle to pray as he, the founder of World Vision, encouraged. Mostly I don’t want my heart broken; and yet, as I read and ponder the Scriptures, I am routinely reminded: our Creator’s heart has been and is regularly broken. Moreover, if I truly desire to know that Heart more intimately, as I am wont to think, then brokenness seems the clear option.
However, recently, and not to dull the stringency of that world-vision prayer, it occurred to me: our Lord’s heart is not only filled with sorrow but equally with joy; that these two are not antithetical, but rather are like the confluence of waters. Surely our lives exhibit such: What parent does not know the joyous sorrow/ the sorrow-filled joy of loving a child? What child does not know the breaking heart, either with delight or despair, found in the look or word of a parent? And of course, what we know to be true of the parent-child relationship, we experience almost daily in virtually every other relationship: in friendships and marriages, among neighbors and colleagues.
As I imagined the confluence of sorrow and joy, Mark 6:33ff. and the feeding of the five thousand came to mind: in seeking respite, Jesus and His disciples came upon a further, harried and forsaken crowd. As He looked upon them, He had compassion—His heart broke—“because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Thus He cared for them both by teaching them—no doubt words of comfort—and then by providing a joyous feast for them: the Greek of 6:39-40 greatly suggests such festivities, and is fully consistent with those who maligned Him as “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34).
Sorrow and joy flowing together, perhaps not unlike the Psalmist’s view: “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5).
If I may, let me encourage you to pray with me, that our hearts may know His Heart, breaking-forth with sorrow and joy, and perhaps both at once.
Praying,
Stan
Ps. In two weeks I will witness again lingering Romanian joy and sorrow: thirty years ago they were freed from decades of communist rule.