When God Breaks Our Heart

We don’t often think of God as a heartbreaker. He is love.  In His presence is fullness of joy. He binds up the broken hearted! So how could God, or why would He, break my heart?  Is it even possible that God would ‘cause’ me to experience sorrow?  Sure it is! The bible even says in 2 Corinthians 7:10 “Godly sorrow worketh repentance.” 

Certainly God’s heart breaks for lost humanity. Genesis 6:6 tells us that it repented God, or grieved Him, that He created men. (It wasn’t that He made a mistake, but that we brought sorrow into His life.)  Jesus looked out over the city of Jerusalem and mourned saying, “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”

So, here is a point I want to make: If God’s heart breaks for lost humanity, why doesn’t ours?  We have been redeemed from eternal damnation! Why then are we so unconcerned with those who are still on the way to Hell?

I have often asked God to allow me to feel what He feels. I have found on occasion, that I cannot handle it.  I don’t know if you have ever experienced it, or not, but I am experiencing it to a certain degree even now as I write this, and I have experienced it several times before.  I honestly believe that God will sometimes allow us to experience what breaks His heart to galvanize us to His purpose.

Some of you will remember, I recently stood before the congregation unable to speak through the anguish I was experiencing on behalf of abandoned children in Brazil. We need our hearts broken! Not just for Brazil, or for Uganda, or Pakistan or Israel or even... America, but our hearts should be groaning within us because of the pain in God’s heart for His lost world.

We sing a song in worship sometimes that says, “(Lord) break my heart for what breaks yours.” Do we really want it though?  Because, it’s far easier to just be satisfied with what God has done for us, and just let the rest of the world go to hell.

Oh, God shake us! Wake your church to the cry of your heart! If our hearts need to break so that we might feel Your grief for the lost, then let us experience heartbreak! Let Godly sorrow bring us to repentance for our lack of concern for those around us!  For Lord, if we will partake of Your glory, should we not also partake in Your suffering?  Save this region Lord, and use us to do it!