The Doorway of Heartbreak

Are you walking through a heartbreak right now?

Week 44 – Celebrating 100 Years of Oswald Chambers

VERSE:  “Know ye not that …ye are not your own?” 1 Corinthians 6:19

OSWALD:  “Why shouldn’t we go through heartbreaks? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us fall and collapse at the first grip of pain; we sit down on the threshold of God’s purpose and die away of self-pity, and all so called Christian sympathy will aid us to our death bed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, and says – ‘Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine.’ If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart.” – (My Utmost for His Highest, November 1st)

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How It Spoke to Me…

Does it feel as though everything worthwhile has been ripped away right now, leaving only remnants to remind you of what might have been?

There is nothing more devastating, humanly speaking, than a broken heart. And yet, in God’s economy, nothing holds more potential for growth and Christ-likeness than those wounds that have seemingly shattered us beyond repair.

I was surprised a few years ago to find that I was still dealing with the residue of heartbreak.

So long past the initial pain, I had expected to be fully healed by now. To be able to clearly articulate all the benefits of the breaking. To neatly tie up the loose ends of my experience into a spiritual analogy I could share with the world.

But, instead, I found myself wandering aimlessly in the “land of inbetween” – that difficult “mean”-time which stretches between our hurt and God’s redemption of the pain.

Gratefully, I was reminded that while I couldn’t see the value of my heartbreak at the time, it didn’t mean the benefit wasn’t already at work.

Time-lapse understanding is always hard on our humanity. We want our pain to make sense so we can file it away properly and move on to better things. But I’m learning that I’ve got to let God do the filing. For only He knows how to categorize the work He’s doing in me.

As I give Him my heartbreak, He is released to do another kind of “filing” – the even-more-important shaping and honing work which seems to happen best in the midst of the difficulties and injustices of life.

The “iron sharpening iron” process that makes me less and less like me. And more and more like Jesus.

Unfortunately, the temptation is always there, as Oswald points out, “to sit down on the threshold of God’s purpose and die away of self-pity.” But I don’t want to miss the gift of suffering. That mysterious opportunity Paul says we have to “fill up in [our] flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24 NKJV).

To enter into a deeper fellowship with Him – perhaps the sweetest reward of being broken.

Oswald reminds us there are other rewards as well: “If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart.”

What a strange paradox this is! For it is through our breaking that we find our making.

Though we may not fully understand the “whys” of our circumstance, Lord, we can trust Him to bring His purposes to pass. In our lives and in the world we live. Though it involves pain, God is so faithful to use it all. Nothing is wasted.

And for that I’m grateful – from the bottom of my still-being-mended heart.

<< Read WEEK 43 – “Being Shaped for God’s Purposes”

Read WEEK 45 – “The Problem of Self-Pity” >>

I’d love to hear from you…how have you seen God work in your life through heartbreak?