We worked in our flowerbeds yesterday. I love the change of seasons for many reasons and a pretty flowerbed is one of those reasons. Fresh, neat, green! Makes my heart happy. They don’t stay this way long enough in my opinion. Between the sun here in South Louisana frying everything by mid-July and the invading weeds that take over unless you are pulling on a daily basis, they just don’t stay the way they are today – fresh, neat and green!
I had worship music blaring and sang my heart out as I wrestled the flowerbeds back into neat submission. It was a lovely day! Hillsong United’s Hosanna came on – that one line always gets me, “Break my heart for what breaks yours…” That’s a powerful and scary sort of prayer, not my favorite to pray. I want, don’t want it! Because the things of this world that break God’s heart are awful, you can see it all around you if you live eyes wide open – the homeless man people won’t look in the eye, the young girl trafficked for lust’s pleasure, the discarded orphan who doesn’t have a home. It’s everywhere if you are paying attention.
I made the mistake, I will recant this in a few seconds, but initially it felt like a mistake, of clicking on a dang Facebook video and watching it yesterday. I have done this in the past – once it was about a child being abused, another time it was an elephant being tortured by her circus owners. Oh my heart aches – I can’t watch such things, it stays with me for days. It gets stuck in my head and my heart, so I know better, but I clicked anyway. It was a dramatic video that depicted what some women in some Middle Eastern countries experience when they have been judged gulity and are sentenced to death. It was violent, painful, gory, unbelievable! It was hard to watch but I felt compelled to do so. Heartbreaking as she was buried waist deep into the sand, hands tied behind her back as her father, her husband, and even her two sons (who were forced to) threw stones at her! It was awful and it has stayed with me.
My first response was regret – why the heck did I just watch that?
Sometimes we look longer than we should because we are nosey.
Sometimes we look longer than we should because of our voyeuristic tendencies.
Sometimes we look, and this is what I learned yesterday, because we must!
How can we ever know what breaks God heart if we keep our head under a rock never seeing the world, outside of our world, as it is?
Parts of this world are very ugly and it serves no one to not see it,
to not see them.
The ugliness of humanity is hard to look at, it will mess you up, it will stay stuck with you, and if you let it,
it will
change you –
move you –
empower you
to do something about it.
I felt like it was a mistake to watch that video because my heart has been heavy since with the reality that stoning still happens in our world today. It is not just a nice story from the Bible where Jesus stands between a sinful woman and her accusers, stones in hand ready to hurl at her. It is not just a nice story where men come to see their own sin and release stones from their hands as they walk away from her. Today, it is not a nice story at all…Jesus is not recognized by these men who feel justified in their actions to murder a woman, stones are hurled and a woman dies. It is not a nice story.
I have prayed continuously for the women in the Middle East since that click. It made me think of Stephen, the first of many Jesus followers to be slain for the Gospel, Stephen was stoned outside the city wall of Jerusalem for the cause of Christ. I have prayed for Christian martyrs across the world as well, those men and women dying for their faith. Since that click I have felt connected, I have felt an obligation to pray not just for men and women, but brothers and sisters. If you are a Christian, if you believe in heaven, if you believe in the salvation of Christ, then you know that we are a family, God is our Father and in Christ we are all brothers and sisters and one day we will live together as a family in our heavenly home. That click reminded me.
So I didn’t sleep well last night, I woke up many, many times and I prayed. It is still on my mind and heavy on my heart. All those beautiful women. I am pounding heaven’s gates for them, commissioning angels to position. Oh, how God’s heart must break over His creation. I don’t know that my prayers will change the hearts of men, I don’t know that my prayers, from my safe bed, will save a woman today but I must pray. I pray for her, like Stephen, that the heavens will open and she will see God’s glory.
Acts 7:54-60 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him…While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”When he had said this, he fell asleep.
So, I pray that Jesus stands between her and her accusers and that she falls asleep, ushered into her heavenly Father’s arms where she is accepted, loved, and SEEN.
I see the King of glory
Coming on the clouds of fire
The whole earth shakes, the whole earth shakes
I see His love and mercy
Washing over all our sin
The people sing, the people sing
Hosanna, Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna, Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest
I see a generation
Rising up to take the place
With selfless faith, with selfless faith
I see a near revival
Staring as we pray and seek
We’re on our knees, we’re on our knees
Hosanna, Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna, Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna, Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna, Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest
Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like You have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause
As I walk from earth into eternity
Hosanna in the highest
In the highest
In the highest
Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna in the highest
In the highest
In the highest
Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest
“Open up my eyes to the things unseen, Show me how to love like You have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks Yours, Everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause.”
Break my heart for what breaks Yours, everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause – it’s a scary sort of prayer but we must pray it – our brothers and sisters need us to pray it! Don’t let the security of your world shelter you from the ugliness outside. Pull your head out from under the the rock, look around, and as your heart breaks be changed, moved, empowered!
