“Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”
My heart was broken by a conversation I overheard in a coffee shop this afternoon. Young guy chatting with an older guy about dysmorphia and having been born with more than one type of body parts, how confusing that was, and how his (formerly Christian) family members have treated him, including the statement “If you have t*ts and a d*ck you belong in a circus.”
I’m struggling to understand how ANYONE could treat another human being that way, much less someone who claims to be Christian. Regardless of whether dysmorphia is a result of bonus body parts or something else, that kind of hateful comment is NEVER appropriate. Regardless of the reason for dysmorphia, it seems obvious to me that they are dealing with a tremendous amount of trauma and pain.
I don’t understand how someone could consider that statement “Christ-like.”
Can you imagine Jesus EVER talking to someone that way?!?
Hint: He wouldn’t.
I wanted so badly to go over and give him a hug. To tell him I am SO SORRY that someone who claimed to follow Christ treated him in such a horrifying and un-Christlike way. To tell him that Jesus loves him, wants him, died for him. But I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t a conversation I was invited to. I just happened to overhear.
It makes me incredibly angry when Christians put stumbling blocks in front of people, and make it even more difficult for someone to get to Jesus. THIS. IS. NOT. OKAY. We are supposed to “make the paths straight” and point the way to Him, not say and do things that make it harder. We are supposed to represent Him. To share Him. To behave like Him.
As a Christian, it is not compromising your convictions to love people well. On the contrary, loving people well is living out your convictions – or should be, if your convictions are actually based on Scripture. It is, in fact, pointing the way to Jesus, and living out what He told us to do.
For now, I’m not going to give you all the Scriptures I’m thinking of that apply here. I could list dozens. Hundreds. If you question something I’ve said here, I challenge you to look it up for yourself.
Read the Gospels again. Read how Jesus talked to (and about) religious people. To the people who made it more difficult for others to get to God. Read how He treated people who were (very obviously) sinning. Read what He said – both to and about them. Read what He did. And read how they responded to His gentleness and obvious love for them.
I do intend to continue studying these topics in the Bible, and I do intend to keep this conversation with you going.
I fully intend to become a squeaky wheel on this one. It is no wonder so many people walk away from Jesus if this is how people who claim to be Christ-followers speak and act. And it’s time the rest of us called it out. It’s time we showed up. Showed up with love in a huge way.
On a very personal level, I feel like God’s been allowing me glimpses of other people’s pain lately – in a whole new way. Maybe I’m leaning into the empath thing more and He’s developing that in me, I don’t know. But I feel like I’m just beginning to grasp the prayer (from Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision) “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”
I think I expected my heart to break from a different angle on sin – as in, from the sins we deem “worse” than others, and seeing people devastate their own lives by choices that lead them away from God’s path. But I’m finding it’s often the sins of believers toward a dying and hurting world that my heart is most often broken by.
I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. After all, it was the religious people Jesus had scathing words for. He showed only gentleness and compassion for everyone else.
I’m so thankful He sees hearts and motives.
Oh, and the guy in the coffee shop… I don’t believe for a moment that I “just happened” to overhear that conversation. I may not know his name, but God does. And I’m praying God plants people in his life who will genuinely love him, and that he will find healing in Jesus. Alllll the healing.
For further reading, I highly recommend reading The Gospel Comes With a House Key