Will God Ever Break Your Heart?
Jesus is the Perfect Lover. But does it mean He will never break your heart? How I wish it were always easy to trust Him. But His perfection is at times the very cause of our sufferings. His Love is a consuming fire that will bring about our greatest good, even if it means we momentarily suffer from it. Even if it breaks your heart and mine.
I know He loves me, but He has taken away from me the people I so dearly loved.
I know He loves me, but He has hindered me from fulfilling some of my greatest dreams.
I know He loves me, but He has confined me where I cannot go as my heart desires.
I know He loves me, but He has allowed me to go through very uncomfortable and inconvenient times.
I know He loves me, but He has allowed my body to be weary, my heart to bleed in pain and my soul’s happiness to run dry.
To love Jesus is to try to reconcile two versions of how we see Him to be.
On one side is the Ultimate Lover, dying for His beloved, never withholding anything for the sake of the one He loves. On the other side is a God who is silent in our sufferings and who allows pain, trouble and countless difficulties to touch us and to break our hearts.
It is easy to love Him when we envision His gentleness, patience and kindness with us. It is easy to love Him when we reflect upon His generosity, how He made even the stars of the sky for our sake.
But when tough times come, we can’t help but wonder, “Does He even care?”
And it’s not only about our most difficult problems. Sometimes, it’s the little annoyances in life that create such a big burden for us. The little irritations that wear us down and bring us near despair. And where is God in all the messiness of of life? If He is good and gentle and kind, how could He allow such things to happen to His beloved one?
When such times come, two options are given to us. One is to desert Him and to abandon our faith in Him. The other one is to continue to trust in the One who offered His very life for us.
If God is really good, then He has not allowed evil to touch me except if it could bring some greater good. God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow.” - James 1:17, WEBBE
Every evil then that He ever allows for our sake is only temporary. It is absurd if we should rejoice in unending suffering and darkness, for that would be the same as hell. We rejoice because we know that it is not yet the end, and God has reserved a far greater happiness for us in heaven.
“The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast… Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
If our temporary suffering can raise our eyes toward heaven in hope, then it has already accomplished something good for us.
It’s never easy. And we cannot go on without His grace.
Times like that, even when we don’t feel like it, we should strive to pray. Let us be honest with Him. He knows how weak we are. He knows when the enemy is too strong for us. The One who cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” certainly understands the darkness where we are.
"He delivered me from my strongest enemies, and from them that hated me: for they were too strong for me." – Psalm 17:18, DRA
“All evil, in fact the very existence of evil, is inexplicable until we refer to the paternity of God. It hangs a huge blot in the universe until the orb of divine love rises behind it. In that apposition we detect its meaning. It appears to us but a finite shadow as it passes across the disc of infinite light.” — E. H. Chapin, Living Words
To Love is to Be the Bad Person Sometimes
What is it like to love?
It is to desire the good of the other,
And to do everything in your power
To save her and protect her.
It is to see the good,
Together with the bad,
And to accept them both,
With open arms.
To love is to allow
Your beloved to be free,
Free to dream,
Free to cry,
Free even to make mistakes.
To love is to allow
The other to grow,
Even when she does not know.
It is to be silent,
When silence is needed,
It is to be mistaken
As someone who doesn’t care
When you know far too well,
You care for her
More than anyone ever could.
Yes, to love is to be good,
But sometimes,
It takes a lot of guts
To appear that you’re bad,
Even to make her sad.
You hold your tears,
And you withdraw your voice.
Because you love her
With all your heart and soul.