I’d Rather Be Shattered

A single word of deceit sauntered from my tongue, ‘no.’ It was a simple solution, this one word, for side-stepping a discussion I didn’t want to have.

I knew in that moment what my husband did not – I bore a scarlet ‘L.’

Some may call it a white lie, avoiding the topic, harmless. However small I could justify it to be, this thing I had done, this word I had spoken, was sin.

I lied to my husband.

And it wrecked me – as it should.

If a heart that delights in God is a heart that is soft and moldable in His hands (see more about that here), such a heart will inevitably feel sorrow as well as joy. And such a heart will delightfully receive the painful work of purification, of transformation into the image of Christ – will even take joy in it!

If we don’t feel our sin, we’ve probably hardened our hearts and lost our delight in the Lord. Just as a hardened lump of clay will refuse to be formed into the artists’ vision, so a hardened heart will become unyielding to the work of The Artist.

But a soft and moldable heart, a delighted heart, will weep and mourn over its sin. And as it softens to receive the conviction, it also softens to receive the shaping, the forming, the growth.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

James 4:8-10

It’s far too easy for us all to idolize our own perspectives and ignore God’s perspectives. What I want to call avoidance, God calls sin. What I want to explain as ‘not a big deal,’ God desires me to recognize as prideful refusal to obey His ways.

I lied to my husband. I could keep the lie, covered in fig leaves, or I could confess the truth and unfold a pathway to peace with God and peace with my brother in Christ.

No more than five minutes later, I had confessed to God and my spouse, but what remained was a deep sadness that I had done such a thing in the first place. I probably think too highly of myself to begin with (as all us duty-prone people tend to do) to be so surprised by my sin, but this lie was a reminder of my fantastic capacity for sin; my great need for a Savior; my undeserved perfect position in Christ.

With these heavy, mournful feelings, the fingers of the Artist pressing into my softening heart, I exhaled a new song to the Lord, my fingers at the keyboard:

I bring You my dirty hands, You take my heart instead.

In sacrifice You take no pleasure.

For the sins of all, You died and You bled.

To make all who come Your treasure.

 

Let me not forget the weight of my sin.

Help me know the depths of Your forgiveness.

And when this heart grows stone-like with pride,

Shatter me with Your waves of grace.

 

And when I fail to do what You’ve called me to,

And I do the things You’ve asked me not to,

Still Your gift of mercy withholds Your hand of wrath.

You’ve redeemed this wretched sinner.

 

Let me not forget the weight of my sin.

Help me know the depths of Your forgiveness.

And when this heart grows stone-like with pride,

Shatter me with Your waves of grace.

 

Sorrow and mourning are the result of a softened and delighted heart. It is a hardened heart that explains away sin and is unmoved by evil within or without.

I’d rather be shattered.

What about you?

It’s as if Paul were speaking to me instead of the Corinthians: “I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God.” (2 Corinthians 7:9)