Compassionate Brokenness
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| From Morguefile |
Of course you have. Me too. Dealing with it right now.
Just heard about it this afternoon, in fact. Happened several days ago, I had no idea that what I said and did hurt someone's feelings, but it did. Immediately, I tried to make contact, I wanted to reconcile with this person, I wanted to make sure that the relationship remains intact (as Jesus tells us to do) but I couldn't - person won't be available until tomorrow...
And this hurts me.
And it should. I should hurt when I have hurt someone else. I should ache to make this right. When I am wrong* I need to confess to God, I need to confess to the person I have hurt.
Here's the thing about broken communities (churches, neighborhoods, families, etc): there's rarely compassionate brokenness. Oh, there's plenty of brokenness, of course - dysfunctional brokenness - backbiting, bitterness, hatred, despair, gossip... And the devil loves that kind of brokenness.
A lot of our communities are broken communities.
But I'm talking about compassionate brokenness here.
Jesus was going all through the towns and the villages teaching and preaching and the very broken people were coming for hope and healing and Matthew tells us that he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Compassionate Brokenness. Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and beside Lazarus' tomb, saying to an adulterous woman, "Neither do I condemn you"**, telling the disciples, "You give them something to eat" and a hundred other examples.
Dr. Robert Pierce, founder of World Vision, famously wrote once (in his Bible, if I remember correctly):
“Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”
Compassionate Brokenness...
*And I was wrong, even if I didn't mean to be, this person was not being "overly sensitive" or whatever, I messed up, I need to ask for forgiveness...
**Of course he then says, "Go and sin no more" - see, it's not just "bleeding heart liberalism", okay?
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