From heaven the Lord looks down and sees … he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. Psalm 33:13, 15
God forms the hearts of all. According to the Strong's definition, he forms, shapes, molds, fashions our hearts as a potter. But the part of the definition that stuck with me the most is: squeezing into shape.
I believe that God uses our suffering, our circumstances, our pain to squeeze our hearts into shape. The God-shape of Love. Have you ever felt your heart squeezed? I'm not talking about romantic or sentimental feelings as in this definition:
heartsqueeze That feeling caused by intense longing, nostalgia or heartwarming which is really intense and feels like someone or something has reached into your chest and is squeezing your heart. "Terry gets massive heartsqueeze every time she sees photos of her old cats." (Urban Dictionary)
No, the feeling I'm talking about is more like having a heart attack.
"A pressing, squeezing, or crushing pain, usually in the chest under your breastbone." -- Johns Hopkins Medicine, Angina Pectoris
I'm talking about the gasping, doubled over, feel-like-you're-dying pain that wakes you up sobbing and causes you to cry out, Why? How long? Where are you? David knew this heart squeeze well.
How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Psalm 13:1
I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief. Psalm 38:6 (NLT)
Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Psalm 43:2
My eyes are blinded by my tears. Each day I beg for your help, O LORD; I lift my hands to you for mercy. Psalm 88:9
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? Psalm 21:1
This is the kind of heart-squeezing pain that comes from seeing children leave the faith and wander off into enemy territory. From loved ones committing suicide. From watching family members suffer decades with a debilitating illness, loneliness and depression and nothing ever changing, just getting worse. From the trauma of abuse and neglect cycling down through the generations. From being so beat down you are just waiting for the next horrible thing to happen. From the crushing pain of feeling/knowing that you have failed loved ones and God.
Elizabeth Elliot, who experienced the pain of the squeezed heart, said this:
"Suffering is a mystery that none of us is really capable of plumbing. And it's a mystery about which I'm sure everyone at some time or other has asked why. If we try to put together the mystery of suffering with the Christian idea of a God who we know loves us, if we think about it for as much as five minutes, the notion of a loving God cannot be possibly be deduced from the evidence that we see around us, let alone from human experience."
Yes, God's purpose in our pain is something that is beyond our minds to grasp, bigger than we can comprehend. It is tempting to paint God with human characteristics, smearing him as self-serving, capricious, even sadistic. Brennan Manning called God's silence in our pain a scandal, and yet also a passage.
"The scandal of God's silence in the most heartbreaking hours of our journey is perceived in retrospect as veiled, tender Presence and a passage into pure trust that is not at the mercy of the response it receives." -- Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust
Jesus knew the squeezing of the heart, he knew the silence of his Father God as he hung on the cross, and he cried out Why? I don't know, maybe Jesus allowed himself to be blinded for a time to God's purpose in his life so that he could experience fully the suffering we suffer. The agony of feeling abandoned, forsaken, forgotten. So that he could show us how to choose the ruthless trust, the even though, the yet. The though-He-slay-me decision to keep going on walking with our Father, to keep believing in his all-things-work-together-for-good loving character, his goodness and wisdom, his very heart-essence.
"If your faith rests in your idea of how God is supposed to answer your prayers, your idea of heaven here on earth or pie in the sky or whatever, then that kind of faith is very shaky and is bound to be demolished when the storms of life hit it. But if your faith rests on the character of Him who is the eternal I AM, then that kind of faith is rugged and will endure." -- Elizabeth Elliot, Suffering is Never for Nothing
I'm sorry, I don't have any stunning conclusions or answers. I am shaky. I cry out in the agony of God's silence. Yet, I am committed to pressing on. Because I trust the hands of the One who is doing the squeezing. I trust his character and essence. I trust his great heart. I can't put myself on the level of Paul, but I say with him, "I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able (mighty, powerful, able, strong, capable; makes all things possible)."
Lord show me the way, lead me through the Narrow Gate, the passage into pure trust in You.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. Psalms 139:23-24
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! Psalm 27:13-14
Trust in Him at all times, O people, pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah. Psalm 62:8
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