Half Hearted

I week or two ago I was re-reading part of a wonderful book by John Eldredge called Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive. A big theme in the book is the problem of "brokenheartedness." Usually I hear that phrase and just think of being sad, down, depressed, or wounded. But Eldredge observes that the problem is much more literal than that. The biblical language speaks of a heart that is shattered - that was once whole, but now is in many separate pieces. He speaks of little indicators of our brokenness, like the ever popular phrase "part of me wants to, but part of me doesn't." We are not wholehearted. My fractured human frame has many different pieces, pulling in a hundred different directions. I was speaking to a friend once and he expressed this tension in his soul:

"How is it that I can be loving Jesus, totally fascinated and in love with Him, and then literally minutes later find myself cold, dull, and moving away from him in sin and rebellion?"

I feel this tension all the time. In fact, I've seen this tension nearly destroy a close friend. He just couldn't take it anymore - he had no grace for his own inconsistency and his tendency to run away from God time after time after time.

Another author describes Christianity as a medicine which, when taken in a full dosage, cures the most serious disease. But when taken in a half-dose, the medicine actually worsens the sickness and its symptoms. Half heartedness is dangerous - it makes us sick (of ourselves). Still, sometimes it feels like the best we can hope for. The question is, do I really trust Jesus when he says that he desires to heal my brokenheartedness? Do I believe that he is able to make my heart whole again?

For me, this is maybe the hardest tension in knowing Jesus: hearing his high calling on my life, and then venturing out on the journey with an inconsistent, immature, and rebellious heart. It hurts. It hurts even to choose to receive forgiveness, grace, and tenderness. If there's anything that's clear in scripture, it's that Jesus looks at the brokenhearted with compassion, not contempt. And as Eldredge says, "Jesus speaks to absolutely everyone as if they are the brokenhearted. We would do well to trust his perspective on this."