Broken, With All My Heart

I found myself moving along a broken road, alone. The African sun was directly overhead, exposing my shame and guilt, leaving no shadows. I scowled at the passing buildings that had been either bombed out or simply abandoned during Sierra Leone’s civil war. They were mirrors of my soul – places meant for family and sanctuary, now left to crumble, and I despised them as I despised myself.

Through my own selfishness I had shipwrecked my marriage and reduced my ministry to rubble. I had turned out to be not much more than a cliché- a disgraced evangelical- and it was my own damn fault. Waves of despair and self-loathing battered me like a relentless tide.

You may have had times like this; moments where important daily details pale compared to the pressure of deciding whether or not to take another breath. If you have, I would like to take the promise from last week’s rant, Big Mac Blessings, and move it into the context it was meant for: your life.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

This promise was given to a people who had blown it. The Bible describes them as prostituting themselves to other gods. They wanted things their own way, and God let them have it. They were rewarded for the rebelliousness with military defeat, starvation, humiliation and exile.

And yet God had plans for them.

Good plans.

The exile was hard. The people just wanted to go back home, to turn back the clock (been there, done that,) but God had a lesson to teach them. This promise was a gentle way of saying, “Wait. Let the sorrow do its work. Don’t go running away again. Live where you are now, as if that is where you’ll be spending the rest of your life. But know that I haven’t forgotten you, and this is not the end of your story.”

Nine years later, I know that God’s plans for me included forgiveness, a restored marriage, two beautiful daughters, and a ministry that enables others to move beyond “the wheezing, beeps, and clicks of spiritual life support.”

The grip of God’s discipline is steady and strong. I don’t know His plans for you, but I pray you’ll let those heavy, nail scarred hands stay on your shoulders long enough to find out. Someday friend, you’ll smile through those tears. I know, because I did.

I still am.

By the way, here’s the second part of that promise:

“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart…” Jeremiah 29:12, 13 (NIV)