JADED HEART
By Dan O’Deens
Oppressed and enraged, No word can be spoken, my heart is so broken.
The enemy’s weapon is taking its toll, effectively robbing the passion in my soul.
My mind is so heavy, my frame so unsteady.
I cannot bear their pain. It seems like a constant strain.
The hatred and hurt feels a bit more like hell
What has broken God’s heart has now broken mine as well.
I choose to engage, I answer the call. It sounds so noble.
But this hatred and pain has now gone global.
My eyes now wide open to what has been obscure.
This is injustice for sure. Could it be that I am part of the cure?
At first it’s all passion. Right? This ought to be my first reaction? All In!
History’s horrors are dated but today my heart is quite jaded.
It’s harder to be persuaded that there is hope.
Injustice destroys like a drug, it’s no longer so ‘dope.’
My soul is now hunted. How could it be that God would allow that I become the prey?
I promise I want to stay! I fall on my knees I beg and I pray! Do not allow sin to have its way.
God of peace and hope and love, give us your wisdom that comes from above.
Your grace is not a gentle shower washing away our problems. Your grace is a raging roaring river and its current knocks us off our feet and yet it carries us into Your very presence.
Restore to me the joy of my salvation. Continue to mold and break my heart,
but Lord I plead protect and mend my jaded heart.
A PERSONAL NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
INJUSTICE is a reality in the broken world in which I live. I have been born into privilege. My worldview and understanding is finite. Sometimes I want to ask God why He doesn’t do something about poverty, racism and the injustices in the world, but I already know His response, “why don’t you?” Scripture teaches that we are His hands and feet and His voice in His world. We are the light of the world. We are the hope in this world. We are instruments of PEACE!
JESUS WEPT. (I am weeping too) As (Jesus) approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it. ‘The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.’ Jesus was speaking of Jerusalem. Could this also be the day of reckoning and a righteous call to redemption for our cities?
I cannot imagine waking up every day to write a new chapter in my ‘lamentations.’ Yet, throughout the writings of Jeremiah, we read things like, ‘The Lord is like an enemy; he has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and destroyed her strongholds. My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.’ Do you ‘feel’ like this as an American? As a citizen in your Country?
But, Jeremiah continues, ‘Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children.’
Have we lost our greatest weapon? I would suggest it is not a picket sign in protest, (albeit not a sin and your right), but a bended knee in prayer to the only One who can change the heart of man. When there is no moral compass, we all go astray. Even when there is, we choose badly and go our own way.
Matthew 12:21,22 ‘A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish, till He leads justice to victory. In HIS name the nations will put their hope.’ Jesus is the hope of the world!
2 Chronicles 7:14 ‘If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.’
Micah 6:8 “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy And to walk humbly with your God.
Psalm 37:3 “Trust God, Do Good.”
FATHER, like Paul in Ephesians 3, I bow my knee before you. Strengthen me by your Spirit in my inner man. Dwell (take residence once again) in my heart, purify my heart. And let me comprehend the height and depth of your unconditional love. Thank you for demonstrating that love to me while I was living in my worst sin.
Restore to me, again, the JOY of your SALVATION!
Protect my spirit from becoming hardened and afflicted by a jaded heart!