Break Your Heart

Long-time New York Senator Patrick Moynihan, then Assistant Secretary of Labor, mourned the assassination of President John F. Kennedy with the words, “To be Irish is to know, in the end, the world will break your heart.”

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Moynihan, like Kennedy, was of Irish descent and had found joy in the election of America’s first Irish-Catholic President. On November 22, 1963, the world broke Moynihan’s heart.

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Since you are reading this post, it is clear that you have lived in this world long enough to know the truth of Moynihan’s protestation. As with the Irish, so with all others.

As a preacher / teacher and as a Christian, I spend much time in the written Word of God – the Bible. One thing I enjoy about the Bible is its honesty. The writers of the Bible did not hide the proverbial “dirty laundry.” While we read about faith, hope, love, peace, joy, and such things in the Scripture, we also read accounts of doubt, despair, hatred, war, and sadness. We read David’s great poems of praise, yet we also learn of his tremendous moral failure. Martha gives a great confession, yet also complains when her sister won’t help with the chores. Peter preaches boldly, yet also denies loudly. The Bibles tells of such disunity of decisions. It also tells of the less-than-fair outcomes for the faithful. In Hebrews, the great faith chapter, we read about men and women who “By faith” served God and found great reward. The same chapter provides examples of not-quite-so-happy results.

Hebrews 11:35b-38 (NIV)
There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

Knowing his readers would not like to stop there, Hebrew’s writer continues.

Hebrews 11:39-40 (NIV)
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

For even the sawed-in-two and destitute, the world’s power to break hearts did not prevail. The final verse informs us that God planned something better. That something better arrived previously in Someone. The same Someone Who said ...

John 16:33 (NIV)
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Yes, the world will break the heart of the Irish (and all other peoples), but the world will not win. Even death, the world’s final battle plan, stands no chance in trying to claim victory.

1 Corinthians 15:55-58 (NIV)
“Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

The world has broken your heart and it will again. Yet take heart for the One Who has overcome is available to you. Trust Him to mend your heart.

#ordinarylives

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