Psalm 51:17

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

In a large family it can be a challenge to manage my days with efficiency.  Balancing the management of the home, with the joy of connecting personally with each child, along with their instruction in matters of faith is no small challenge indeed.  I have to take the opportunities that spontaneously arise as well as create opportunities as often as I can.  And still there are days when I feel like I've hardly seen one of my children.  

My greatest desire is that each of my children will be known by God and will seek His face daily.  Nothing else in life carries more importance to me.  Because Jesus is everything.  God is the source of life and truth and to pursue anything over a relationship with Him is futile.  

But the pursuit of God doesn't begin with works or personal efforts to reach Him. It begins with God, and His great love for us.  He is not impressed with our works or our efforts to be holy.  What God desires is a broken and contrite heart.  This creates quite a conundrum for me as a mother, because what mother would desire that her children be broken?  

I realize this might sound crazy to some, but one thing that I pray for my children is that God will bring them to the place of being broken before Him so that they will know His love and His will for their lives.  This does not mean that I want them to suffer or experience hardship.  This means that I want them to understand how sinful sin is and how desperately they need Jesus to save them.  This doesn't happen without tears of repentance and sorrow for sin.  And it doesn't happen without the fear of The Lord.

My twelve year old son first expressed a true love for God when he was three.  One morning, with all sincerity, he spontaneously shared with me how much he loved God.  He had such a dreamy look in his eyes and his smile was one of a mixture of shyness and wonder about the whole thing.  But just recently, on one of those occasions when I realized I hadn't connected intimately with this same son in a while, I asked him if he still felt that love for God.  To my amazement and concern his answer was, "no, not so much".  It wasn't an answer made in defiance.   He was simply being honest, and I appreciate that.  I don't want to raise dishonest children who merely give answers they think will please me.  I want to know how they truly feel.

So, instead of chastising him, we began a discourse on God's holiness.  And in remembering how holy God is, the sinfulness of our hearts and actions became even more appalling.   My son, was attentive as we talked about God's standard for holiness.  

The first commandment, and the greatest commandment according to Jesus, is that we "Love The Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength".  My son had just confessed to me that his love for God had diminished.  There was no denying a failure.  And that is where we lingered because there was no need to continue going through the commandments having found that the first and most important had been broken.  From there I asked him what he thought could be done to "make it right".  

Now, don't get me wrong.  We speak about God daily in our home, we pray together, we try to honor God in daily life and be pleasing to Him.  But here was my twelve year old son, who has been raised to know God and His ways, struggling to formulate an answer about what can be done for the one who has sinned.   How to be right with God should be a concern for everyone, because the fact is, we are still being made holy, even after we've been "made perfect forever" in the eyes of God through the blood of Christ.  Until I reminded my son of the gravity and weight of this sin, in light of God's perspective on it, there was no conviction for it.  But God is grieved by sin, and we should be too.  In remembering the holiness of God together, our hearts were reminded of our great need for a remedy for our unholiness.  And though we speak of things like this often in our home, he simply couldn't answer with confidence what could or should be done, if anything, to be right with God.  So I took him to Psalm 51:17.

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."

Now, being sorry for our sin isn't enough to save us.  It's only by God's mercy that we are saved.  But it is in our grief over our sin, that we are broken and become contrite in our spirits, which causes us to seek His forgiveness.  It is the penitent who find God's mercy in Christ Jesus.  Like the thief on the cross who had nothing to offer Jesus, all we have is our ability to ask for His mercy.  And with a broken and contrite heart we find His mercy, freely given to those who will come to God through Him. 

In that conversation, my son was again brought to the remembrance of the sinfulness of his sin and the greatness of God's mercy.   He didn't need to get saved all over again.  But he did see again the wonder of God's love through Jesus.  

In the context of God's holiness, our sin becomes exceedingly sinful.  And in the context of our exceedingly sinful hearts, God's mercy becomes exceedingly wondrous.   And His love becomes the greatest thing we treasure once again.  It is good to remember what God has done for us.  

The Cry of My Heart

The Cry of my heart is to know you, Lord 
To understand your ways.
I long to be in your presence, Lord
And be with you all my days.
If evening or morning should come
To you my heart shall go.
Your courts I'll make my home
I bow before you low.
Be gracious, Lord, to let me stay
And dry my every tear.
For in your Will I find my joy.
You give me hope and cheer.
And when my spirit flies to you
In Jesus' name I'll come.
For then I'll know your victory, Lord
And then my part is done. 
But praise to You I'll always give
And songs I'll ever sing .
For you alone are Eternal God. 
You alone are King.  

Song of Sorrow, Call of God

Psalm 27:8
"When Thou saidst unto me, "Seek My face," my heart said to Thee, "Thy face, O LORD, I shall seek." 

In my growing up years I often experienced unrest.  A certain kind of loneliness would overtake me and my heart would be heavy with inexplicable sorrow.  It might not be normal for a child to discern such a thing to be the call of God, but this was indeed my heart's interpretation.  I saw the empty longing to be a call upon my heart to seek God.  And in response to what I read in Psalm 27:8, I learned to heed that call and seek Jesus in prayer, scripture and song.  

I'm a mother of several children now, and teaching them to hear the call of God in the many languages He speaks has been one of the most precious privileges I've had.  I know that the purpose of coming to Jesus isn't to have the huge void in your life filled.  But there is truth in this;  Often, when someone comes to Jesus, the huge void in his life IS filled.  

Learning to hear God for the languages He speaks is a precious gift.  Some hear God through sorrow, like I did.  Others hear God through miracles, and still others hear His call through hardship and want.  But others may hear His voice in the quiet peace of a morning or the gentle song of the wind.  

Today, if you hear His call, let it be in your heart to say, "Thy face, O Lord, I shall seek"!  

Wells of Mercy, Depths of Love

Charles Spurgeon once said, "Thus there will be three effects of nearness to Jesus—humility, happiness, and holiness." 

For a very long time I've been involved with the Church on some level or another.  First, in my childhood, I attended Sunday school.  In my teen years, along with Sunday School and youth bible classes, I spent time at bible camps and retreats.  And then in my late teens and early twenties I attended a small college level bible school for a couple of years.  In all these endeavors, I learned much about God and His children as well as those who merely come along for the ride.  

As a youth I had an idealistic picture of what being a Christian meant.  But as I grew up those idealistic notions and clear boundaries of Christianity were called into question.  I was introduced to the idea of tolerance and acceptance of others, by way of new found "christian" friends who seemed to have looser interpretations of scripture than I'd ever held to or been taught to believe.

I've met many "christians" along the way and more and more, as I live, I realize that grace and mercy, though clearly defined for us in scripture, are deeper wells than I'd ever imagined them to be.   But what I've also learned is the fact that, though the wells of mercy and grace are indeed infinitely deep, only the repentant may drink of them.  

What I couldn't understand about the "christian" friends I'd had back then, was their ability to bank on the mercy of God for any given compromise they would freely make.  There were many matters of conscience I'd had, which ranged from the choice of music we would listen to, to the places we would go for entertainment.  I never could understand how my friends could enjoy hanging out in a seedy bar to listen to a secular band play.  I did tag along a time or two, but it went against every fiber of my being.  And after a while of being brought into such situations of compromise, I just had to distance myself from those who seemed to be walking down a very different road.  It was difficult for me, because I was told "do not judge", yet all the while, the things being done and accepted seemed so out of character for someone who was "after God's own heart".   I can honestly claim that I learned to look the other way and not judge, but in making my stand for what I considered sin, I lost many friends.  

As of today most of those "christian" friends have left the Christian Faith.  In my most nonjudgmental way I have to admit that this doesn't take me by surprise.  You see, these, who were so liberal in their interpretations of scripture, were also the most critical of my faith and desire to be faithful.  And they were also the ones to push the "boundaries" of holiness continually, even laughing at and mocking me for my convictions.  

Though I wouldn't say that religion saves a man, I will say that a permissive nature often indicates an un-yielded heart that has been given over to the flesh.   In my experience, it hasn't been those who "live it up", while banking upon God's mercy, who have understood the love of God.   It's been the humble and the joyful and the obedient people that I've known, who love God and understand His mercy.  

I am not religious.  I am one who has seen the depths of God's well of mercy and fallen deeply in love with Him for it.  And that love compels me to pursue holiness in every way.