A Heart Divided

[bra_dropcaps style=”dropcap2″]E[/bra_dropcaps]ver wish there was a reset button?
Just press it and you could undo what you’ve seen, heard, experienced.
Or, maybe we could just have one of those big VHS Tape rewinders.
Take life back to a different time. Different moment.
We’d get a redo.
A do over.
Or for those who play golf, a mulligan.

Been feeling like that a lot lately. But that isn’t reality. That isn’t going to happen. We don’t get to undo what’s been done. Either by us or to us. There is no do over, redo, tape rewinders, or mulligans. We find ourselves in the middle of a moment. And, in many cases, it leaves a heart divided. You struggle with feeling like there are two people trapped inside of your body. A person that wants to be loving and another who is angry & bitter. Your emotions flow like a roller coaster, only it doesn’t feel like there is an end in sight.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve gone from really loving someone during one minute, to wanting to punch them in the face the next. Then two minutes later I’m crying, and then I feel bad for my emotions. I think we’ve all been there. We’ve all felt like a wreck inside and wondered why those feelings were all over the place. It’s okay to run through the whole spectrum of emotions. Humanity was perfect in the beginning. Then sin happened. The ripple effect of sin was something we were never built to handle. It goes against the perfect design. So handling, juggling, and working through that feels like a mess on the inside.

God understands.

Sunday, I preached out of Genesis, Chapters 2 & 3, on how authenticity is so vitally important to not only our existence with God, but also how we live in community with one another. When Adam & Eve ate the fruit, it severed the rhythm of everything in Creation. The world changed. They felt shame, regret, humiliation, disgust.

Then they heard God walking in the Garden…

“Where are you?” He called to Adam. I had always read this thinking God was an angry parent ready to scold his children. “Why did you do this!?” “Didn’t I tell you both not to eat from this tree? You could have done anything else you wanted to! Just not this one simple thing!”

A couple of weeks ago, our girls (Chloe 4, Roxy 2) had been naughty and colored all over things they shouldn’t have. So we took away all their coloring books, markers, colored pencils, etc until we thought they should get them back. Well, in the middle of the night, our daughter pulled a David Copperfield escape act. She got out of her room, snuck into our room like a stealth assassin, and got into the bin with all of the markers. She took a marker back to her room, and went on to color her legs, hands, table, spots on the carpet. It was a hot mess.

We awoke to this scene and I just blew a gasket. “What in the world were you thinking!? Why did you sneak into our room and do that? Do we color on ourselves or do we color on PAPER!” Carrie had a different approach. She sat down next to her, gently scooped her up and placed Roxy on her lap, and began to clean her up. As she was doing that, she talked about how we need to make wise choices. She kept repeating that she loved Roxy. A minute or two in, Roxy turned to look at Carrie, “I wuv you too Mommy. I sorrwe.”

Yeah. We both knew she needed correction. Roxy knew before we came in that she had messed up. But, how we approached her made a world of difference. She’s little. She didn’t understand the range of emotions she was going through as we entered. I didn’t even get it at first. But my wife did.

As God enters the Garden moments after Adam and Eve sinned, he wasn’t there to give them a cosmic spanking or heavenly tongue lashing. He was gently coming to them as one who knew the emotions they were going through were things they couldn’t handle and weren’t built to. He knew there was a consequence, but it was time for man to simply come out, face his Father, and for his Father to let him know, “I’m here. There’s no need to hide. Your emotions are all over the place. There’s going to be a punishment for disobeying, but I’m still your Father. That hasn’t changed.”

Personal Sin & Failure: You’re going to be all over the place. A heart divided. you’ll face regret, sorrow, anger, frustration, and wondering why you failed. While there is a consequence of sin; God understands what you’re going through. He is both loving and just. It’s a combination I am still trying to figure out, but probably never will this side of heaven. But, I do know that you are loved by an amazing God, and he calls us to repent, turn from that sin, and surrender as we draw near to Him.

Being Sinned Against/Someone Fails You: Again, you’re going to be all over the place. A heart divided. You’ll want to embrace them and show grace one minute and throw them in a river the next. God understands this, and calls us to trust Him. He is righteous. He deals with sin. He convicts the heart of mankind to turn from his/her sin. Will healing and forgiveness happen immediately? No. Wounds happen instantly, but take much longer to heal. Let God do what only he can do… the miraculous. He can heal you better than you were ever before. That doesn’t mean you won’t wear the scars as a reminder of where you came from and been through. But, sometimes it’s the scars we have that remind us of how great the Father truly is.

Living a life in Christ isn’t easy.
The Bible is messy.
The church is messy.
People are down right messy.

But, in the middle of all that messiness is where God’s love shines.
You may be in a “heart divided” moment, but God brings healing… in His time.