Let’s Mend This!

Who can honestly say that our country, our society, our communities, our relationships in every day life are not in serious need of mending? Hearts are broken and breaking more and more each day as we continue to allow polarization to become commonplace.

It has been said time again that, “The things that unite us are stronger than the things that divide us.” So why do we continue to pull to our corners, always on the ready to come out swinging?

The “heart of America” is broken!

In our “peopleness,” we hold tightly to our innate need to “be right” and disregard any and all semblance of what may feel like surrender of what some call “rights” — but in all essence, so much is just the need to control, and practice arrogance, greed, and selfishness. It’s sin. Plain and simple. There is nothing godly about the way we are behaving toward one another, and yet we scream out that we are a country founded on godly principles.

Well … God is in the business of restoration! And we as individuals and we as a community and country are in dire need of restoration.

“There is a time to tear apart and a time to sew together.
A time to be silent and a time to speak.”

Ecclesiastes 3:7, NKJV

Here we are … most all of us in quandary of what to do. Most of us feeling some degree of stress, anxiety, anger, fear, confusion, chaos… each ungodly manifestations of disobedience.

We long for peace, understanding, clarity, authenticity, TRUTH. These are godly attributes. But we must be willing to let go of our “peopleness” — those aforementioned needs to be in control, to be right, to win or gain at all costs. We must come to the place of humility and acknowledgement that each of us … EACH of us have contributed to the “brokenness” of our own heart and the heart of America.

In the book of Jeremiah (the weeping prophet), chapter 30, God tells Jeremiah to “write everything I tell you in a book,” and He assures him that a “time is coming when I will turn everything around for my people, Israel and Judah…”

God acknowledges the brokenness He sees to Jeremiah (and he wrote it down) …

“Cries of panic are being heard. The peace has been shattered.”

Jeremiah 30, The Message

God also recounts the disobedience of Israel and Judah, but reminds of His Covenant to them. Some will see the message that He gives Jeremiah to deliver as resounding judgement but it is actually His DISCIPLINE. God is disciplining His children in order to correct their misbehavior. He loves His children … even in their disobediance. EVEN IN THEIR “PEOPLENESS.”

Discipline is NOT a comfortable experience. Corrective action requires a change in attitude, accountability, and responsibility. Corrective action is a part of the journey to restoration, but requires effort, hard work. Most of all, it requires DESIRE to do better, to let go of whatever is harbored in our spirits that divides us from each other, fosters those anxieties, fears, stress, anger and separates us from God’s intent and will for our lives.

“God is in the business of restoration.” He’s proven that over and over to people who genuinely seek Him and love Him and want to live and walk humbly with Him and others.

There is probably not a soul on earth that has not experienced some degree of heartbreak. Some may attest that a broken heart endures for a lifetime, and cannot be mended. Some broken-heartedness fosters great despair, loneliness, and “ALONE-NESS” (something that is completely contrary to how God created us). We were created for COMMUNITY … it’s part of our purpose … as we co-exist with all of God’s Creation.

There are many passages in God’s Word that directs us how to begin the mending of a broken heart … how to start the journey toward restoration.

The one passage that comes to mind first and foremost, from an individual perspective which is where each of us must begin is …

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:23-24, NKJV

Let’s Mend This!