Heart Study

MEDITATION 3

A BROKEN AND CONTRITE HEART 

 

If you have opened your heart to Jesus and examined what you treasure, you may have become aware of some pain in your heart. You may feel a resistance to opening your heart to Jesus because of the past or the pain you feel there. But “rethinking Jesus” will mean finding peace for the pain in your heart. Rethinking your own heart and His heart toward you is a journey that leads to finding the greatest lover of your heart and that is a journey worth taking. 

 

Maybe it felt really good to have an open heart to Jesus; there is a certain lightness and freedom to opening one’s heart completely to love.  Maybe an open heart led you to be thankful for the loving, soft- hearted acts others have bestowed upon you.  Savor this, this is good!

 

But if you are honest, there was pain too. As you examined your treasures here on earth, you may have become more aware of the good parts of yourself. You may have looked at where you loved others or failed to love them. Maybe you opened your own heart and saw some things that you did not like. Maybe opening your heart to Jesus meant seeing someone else’s cold, hardened heart toward you. 

 

Where you looked at your and others’ acts and felt goodness and love inside of you, this points to God’s love in some way. The cold-heartedness in your heart and others is pointing you to pain and probably sin. Jesus understands both sides of our hearts. It is why your Creator says that “ a broken and contrite heart, I will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). Because you have opened your heart to God and to life, you will feel pain. Whether searching for your true heart or the heart of Jesus, you will eventually face the reality of the world’s pain; the world’s heartache and burdens are inescapable crosses.  We all carry them.

 

Jesus is the ultimate cross and burden carrier. He is the only one to ever have carried the crosses of life perfectly. He knows you cannot escape your crosses and He wants to help you carry them. Jesus did live and He was nailed to a cross for you. It is a fact. He lived, is still living, and He is coming back someday. These are facts, whether you believe them or not. You can spend a lifetime examining these facts, disbelieving these facts or sharing these facts. But one thing is for certain, the only way you can know is to seek Jesus with your open HEART. 

 

Why must we carry crosses in this life and what does that have to do with the heart? Why do so many of us feel like our hearts are empty or cold or lost? Because, wherever you are in the world, it is certain that your life has its unique and not so unique pains, joys, and fears. You feel them in your heart and you respond to them with what is in your heart. Ultimately, what you hold in your heart will decide the quality of love you experience in this life and life after death and judgment. 

 

We can easily read with our hearts that the human condition is full of little and big joys. But our world is also filled with a darkness and loneliness that  we all experience in our hearts at times. As a famous follower of Jesus once said, “ Our hearts are made for God and we are restless until we rest in Him” (St. Augustine, look him up, Jesus radically changed his heart). There is no rest in our hearts apart from knowing love. Jesus allows crosses because they are meant to ultimately lead us to love; crosses are meant to lead us to Him. 

 

This darker side of the human story is inescapable, it is a burden for us. We have our different crosses (difficulties, disappointments, temptations, sin struggles, and  trials) and our different joys, but we all feel them with our hearts. The darkness and coldness of life is caused by our hearts as we harden them to love (Jesus). As a result we lose connection to loving ourselves, God, and each other. We harden our hearts and then we sin. In this condition of sin, it is difficult to hear God in our hearts.  We must rid our lives of sin if we want to hear Jesus and to stay near to His good and loving heart. 

 

The pain and crosses we bear in life are a result of sin. Sin is a tendency in the human heart to want its own way (pride) and to believe that its own way is the best way (better than the Creator’s way).  Sin is missing the mark of the perfection, goodness, and beauty that God created for us, because of our cold-hearted, selfish choices. Sin eventually causes pain to others, us, and to God. 

 

 Living with a soft heart means being honest about the fact that selfishness is not only outside of ourselves, it is within us. We know we fall short of perfect love, we see others do it as well. We feel the sting of hard-hearted, sinful choices that we and others have made. When we do not not take others dignity into account: when we harden our hearts and act in cold, angry, violent, selfish ways; we sin. This is sin and it is a part of the human heart. We are all to blame for sin because we all lack love at times. 

 

This is why Jesus came to earth from heaven and died for our sins on a brutal cross. He knows the weight of sin and pain in our lives and He wants to set us free. He wants to show you the truth about His heart toward you and help you to carry your crosses with the love that only an open heart to Him can. He is “meek and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29), He is “faithful and true” (Revelation 19:11) and He, ”lays down His life for His friends” (John 15:13). He has already laid down His life for you and He will free you from your sin. He will free you from the sins of others. He will teach you to live with an open heart of love. 
 

GOD’S HEART IN WORDS

 

Psalm 51: 17 … a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

 

Jeremiah 20: 10  …Lord of Hosts who test the just, who probes the mind and heart… 

 

Jeremiah 17: 9 More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?  

 

Proverbs 25: 20 …sorrow gnaws at the heart.

 

Proverbs 28:14 …he who hardens his heart will fall into evil.

 

Proverbs 12:25 Anxiety in a man’s heart depresses it…

 

1 Maccabees 6:10   …for my heart is sinking with anxiety.

 

Psalm 17:3 You have tested my heart, searched it at night…

 

Psalm 84: 3 …my heart and flesh cry out for the living God…

 

Psalm 77:7 …In the night I meditate in my heart; I ponder and my spirit broods.

 

Psalm 38:9-11 Lord, all my longing is known to you, my sighing is not hidden from you.

 

Proverbs 14:10 The heart knows its own bitterness…

 

Sirach 10:12 The beginning of pride is man’s stubbornness in withdrawing his heart from his Maker

 

Psalm 73: 21 …my heart was embittered and my soul deeply wounded.

 

Psalm 73: 26 My flesh and my heart fail…

 

THINK ABOUT IT: 

 

1. Now is time “rethink” and “reflect” about where you have acted with primarily a selfish or hard heart towards others. Where do you have anxiety, where is your heart heavy and crushed or broken?  Begin thinking about a list of the pain in your heart. 

2. Examine when you have acted selfishly or cruelly, revealing the hardness in your heart. 

 

DO IT:

 

1. Look up the 10 Commandments in Exodus in the Christian Bible and read Matthew Chapter 5…read on until you get the picture that you are not perfect and in your heart you know you need to “rethink” asking Jesus to help you turn from sin and toward Him.

2. Next picture what selfish, cruel acts have been done to you. 

1. Allow yourself to feel anger and compassion that others experience a soft and cold heart too.

2.  Now picture a soft heart about these things. Ask Jesus to give you His Spirit (the Holy Spirit) and help you to see the truth. You may be very sad for a moment or for days. But put on a brave heart and do it. The Spirit of Jesus will come to your heart. You will know He is there. Doing this will lead you somewhere good-to the heart of Jesus, His Father.  You will begin to feel the Father’s love. You may also feel very sorry for what you have done, You may feel God’s sorrowful heart at what you have done or what others have done to you. This is good. Your Creator says that “those who mourn now on earth will one day be joyful with him in heaven. “(Matthew 5: 4)

3. Read Psalm 51 slowly. Stop and feel and take in the words that jump out of the page and into your heart! ASK Jesus to have mercy on your hard heart. 

4. Confess to Jesus that you have a hard heart sometimes and confess specifically how you have sinned. If you are Catholic go to Confession.  

5. Read the “ God’s Heart in  Words” from the Holy Bible everyday and chew on them and take them into your heart.