What is it to grow up? To change?
I haven’t changed much in 9 years. Yes, I work a little harder. I dream a little less. I read a little more. I travel a little less. I work out a little more. I watch movies a little less.
But overall, I am pretty much the same person. The entries I have made are still often exhortations to myself. I read my posts and still say ouch. I still don’t follow my own advice. However, I am grateful for the young one who wrote those words 9 years ago.
One of the longest journeys in life that we take is the journey of knowledge as it makes its way from your mind and begins to embed itself in your heart, becoming wisdom. It’s a long journey and for many they never make it.
I think that is because my heart is broken. Cracked or smashed like a piece of pottery that has fallen to the ground and shattered. I have tried to take that broken little heart and stuff knowledge into it. Which is fruitless, as all this knowledge that has flowed into my little heart just rushes through the cracks at the bottom.
This is because the heart defies logic. And it has needs that often contradict the knowledge or logic that one believes. One of those needs is the need for our heart to be satisfied. We want our heart longings to be satisfied and as I read the posts of a teenager from 9 years ago I see that longing.
It’s easy to look in all the wrong places for that satisfaction. Consider some of the most important to our culture today.
- Alcohol or drugs.
- Body Image.
- Entertainment.
- Exercise.
- Experiences. Often through travel or fun activities.
- Family.
- Gaming.
- Houses, cars, or boats.
- Money.
- Sex: Whether IRL, in or outside of marriage, or virtual through pornography or erotica.
- Work.
And I am sure there are several others. But these are probably the ones I have thought about most. And all these things do fill our hearts. They fill them up so that we can’t see that which is eternal. We distract ourselves for the moment with the pleasure that they bring. They bring great pleasure, yet when the pleasure ends, the pain just comes right back.
Today I realize more than ever that Jesus is the answer for the broken heart. It is not in saving oneself as I have tried to do 1,001 times. We are created to consider eternity and none of these things can fill a heart that considers and wonders about eternity. Our lives are short and fragile and that which is material only lasts as long as that material continues to exist.
Jesus says, “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Today I am the same as I was yesterday except for the love that Jesus pours into my heart. And that love is a glue that begins to bring all those little broken pieces back together one at a time.
“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”