I recently read a story about a Hasidic Rabbi who was very well-known for his piety and devotion. One day he was unexpectedly confronted by one of his young students. In a sudden burst of emotion, the student said, "Rabbi, I want you to know how much I truly love you."
The Rabbi looked up from his books and asked his young disciple, "Do you know what hurts me, my son?"
The young student was puzzled and taken totally off-guard. He said to the Rabbi, "I don't understand your question. I am trying to tell you how much you mean to me, and you confuse me with an irrelevant question."
"My question is neither confusing nor irrelevant," rejoined the Rabbi. "For if you do not know what hurts me, how can you truly love me?"
I often wonder if that is God's response when I go before Him in prayer, worship, and devotion. I often want to rejoice in His attributes and saving acts and to thank Him for the many blessings He given to me.
On the other hand, do I allow my heart to break over the things that He cares about? Faithlessness, hypocrisy, division, injustice, hatred, and perhaps especially religiosity: all of these things deservingly receive bitter rejection from God in Scripture.
Can I truly say that I love God until I am willing to allow myself to be wounded with the same pain that He feels as He looks out on this fallen world?
I do not at all approve of the homosexual Episcopal Bishop Eugene Robinson, who gave an invocation at one of the many inaugural events this past Tuesday. Yet as he prayed, asking God to bless us with tears, sadness and frustration over the many ills that continue to plague this great nation, I found myself nodding in agreement. Sin continues to plague this world, and I believe that there is a level of spiritual maturity that can only be achieved when we see that sin through God's eyes and respond with the same sadness.
May God continue to tender our hearts to reject the fallenness of our world, and may that compell us to go forth with the only true source of healing: the Name and Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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