Christ is Risen: A Prayer for the Broken Hearted

Matt Maher's latest album All the People Said Amen is a live album featuring one of my favorite songs we sang in Green Lake this summer: Christ is Risen.  It uses scripture poignantly to sing about our God, who has triumphed over the grave in order to give us life.  Just before Maher gets to the bridge that begins with "O death, where is your sting...," he pauses and tells his audience this:

"The same power that raised Christ from the grave can resurrect the heart within you."

God has used Maher's words to speak to my heart, so I want to share how they have done so.  

There are a lot of things that bring us down.  Sometimes we are covered under a pile that accumulates from the smallest pebbles, and sometimes we find ourselves crushed beneath a boulder.  Sin and shame are heavy whatever form they come in.

Sometimes there are extrinsic things.  People in our lives who we love, or people we barely know make decisions that can harm us and hurt us.  Worldly standards tell us that we're not enough and we are not worthy.  

Sometimes there are intrinsic things.  Our own sin and shame bury our heart.  Depression and heartbreak are real things.  They are human things.  They can consume us.  Then the world tells us we are wrong and strange to feel that way.  The weight on top of us builds.  Sometimes we struggle to forgive ourselves.  We let our heart stay captive in darkness.

God's truth is in Maher's words.  It means a couple of things.

God is mindful of the heart within you.  Your heart is not too small, or too insignificant.  It is not insignificant at all.  Neither is your pain.  God knows the heart within you.  He knows when it is heavy and He knows when it is broken.  

God can and will redeem your heart.  Christ has overcome death.  Death is the end.  It is the farthest there is from the joy of heaven and eternal life with God.  It is permanent entrapment under the pile of sin and shame.  God has reached in to that seemingly infinite pile and brought His son home so that we also might come home.  The power of God knows no limits.  No distance is too far.  No pile is ever to big.  No heart is ever too lost or broken.

God's love and power, His sufficient grace that covers all, is constant.  Before the cross, at the cross, and beyond the cross.  That same power.  It has not changed. 

If your heart is in that deep place, know that you are not alone.  Know that my heart has been there too.  Know that I will pray for you, even if I don't know who you are.  I will pray that you know and trust the God who is willing to reach in and reclaim your heart. 

~SP