Create a pure heart in me, O God, and put a new and loyal spirit in me.
How many of us remember the game Operation? The goal of the game was to take all the “sick” parts out of Cavity Sam’s body without touching the edges of the cavity where they were housed. I loved that game and yet, I did not. I jumped every single time those tweezers touched the edge of the box, even though I knew it was going to make that grating sound if I was not able to get the piece out successfully!
Years later I pondered the pieces in that game. Of the several broken parts of Sam’s body, all seemed to be whimsical, except for the heart. There was a funny bone, a wishbone, a breadbasket (how that implies the stomach is beyond me), adam’s apple, wrenched ankle, butterflies in the stomach, spareribs, water on the knee, charlie horse, writer’s cramp, and the ankle bone connected to the knee bone. The heart, however, was broken.
Sometimes, I think, a broken heart is the hardest thing to fix. In reality it is not just the heart that needs surgery, it is the mind. Others’ actions can sometimes be hurtful, but their words can hit us in the core of our being. Often those words stay with us for years and we find those same words leaving our mouth, the way they went into our ears.
My guess is we do not intend to respond to offense in that way, but we do. Hurt people, hurt people. The remedy? A heart like Jesus. When we learn to love like Jesus and pray for strength in the offense, we begin to feel our hearts soften. Our mind looks at situations differently. Instead of hurt, we feel the Holy Spirit in our hearts longing to help. We begin to love.
So, let’s get our surgery scheduled and let the Great Surgeon fix our broken hearts.
