Broken

"I waited patiently for the Lord;
he lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet upon a rock,
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord."
--Psalm 40:1-3

I am going to address this Psalm in pieces. This may be all I get to tonight, this very small piece of the psalm, but I think it might be better that way. I'd rather spend a lot of quality time on one area than push through an entire chapter and barely skim it, begin to grasp it.

Tonight, like many other nights, and days as well, my heart is breaking. My heart is breaking for a broken and fallen world, for the humanity that suffers, that cries out for relief. It is killing me, this ache, this brokenness that burrows inside me, powerless to change anything, to take away the pain from others. If I could, I would take the pain of the world. But I can't. It's actually already been done for me. It's why we have Jesus. But then there is the question that inevitably will always come up.

If Christ is there to take the pain onto himself, then why is it still here? Why do we still hurt? Why do such horrible things keep happening? Where is the greater meaning in this painful, agony stricken broken world? Why do we hurt if He is supposedly here to take it away?

We live in a broken world, and that is a fact. And we are separated from God's world because of the sin that has entered this world. It separates us from God. The bridge that He provided through Christ is the only way to truly connect with Him, so that we can "cast our burden" on Christ, depend on Him when our own strength fails and falls completely short. We are all burdened. It's up to us if we want to carry that alone, or give it away to someone who has the greatest heart and love for us that we will ever know.

This passage just reminds me of some dear friends I have who lived through the Haiti earthquake, whose five story apartment building collapsed completely on them (they were on the bottom floor),living out the psalm literally, and not figuratively. Buried in rubble, in mud, mire, sewage, unable to trust in anything of this world, unable to trust the very ground they were forced to lie upon as the world crashed to a screaming wrenching pile around them, but placing their trust, their hope in the Lord. And then later while they clung to a tree for shelter, singing praises, singing hymns as the ground trembled beneath them. Trusting God to be their firm rock to stand upon, a grounding that would not let them be shaken or moved. Later, as the response in Haiti was so completely the opposite of something that could have been expected in such a situation, that instead of cursing God, crying and lamenting, people turned to Him, they saw His power in all of the mess, they saw His love and they placed their trust in Him. Watching as millions of people, already starving, fasted for Haiti, for God, sang with deafening power, raw intense feeling, faith more real than anything our "Sunday Christians" have ever had here.

I don't even know if tonight's devo even had a purpose. Maybe tonight I am just observing. I am two halves of a whole. One side is just so happy, even when I am sad, I have joy, and I smile because I have this incredible HOPE, this incredible LOVE. But the other side, the raw, cut, deep side is broken. I asked for it. I sang for it. "Break my heart for what breaks Yours. Everything I am for your kingdom's cause." Was I really expecting this in return? Was I really as ready for it as I thought I was? Maybe. Maybe not. I am observing this new brokenness in my life, this new perspective that has come with a new chapter. And it hurts. It hurts a lot. But at least this pain doesn't leave me hopeless. And in the end, I think that is the most important point of all.

Despite this brokenness, we can have hope. We can stand firm in His word, in His love.

I am broken. But I have hope.