Holy Heartbreak

This will be a bit longer than usual, but if you read the whole thing, I promise it will be worth it.  I'm taking this straight out of my journal because it's something God has been speaking to me strongly.  It is a beautiful lesson.  For the sake of length, I am limiting the bible passages I include, but if you want to read further, pretty much all of Malachi and Hosea would be relevant.

"'A son honors his father, and slaves honor their master.  If I am a father, where is the honor due me?  If I am a master, where is the respect due me?' says the Lord Almighty...

'When you offer blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong?  When you sacrifice lame or diseased animals, is that not wrong?  Try offering them to your governor!  Would he be pleased with you?  Would he accept you?' --says the Lord Almighty...  

'Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar!  I am not pleased with you,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and I will accept no offerings from your hands.'"

 -Malachi 1:6, 8, 10

The mediocrity you offer me is insulting on its best days.  Do you not understand what I have done for you?  Do you not understand who I am?  Do you not understand who you are to me?  I am your Father and Master, the Beginning and End of everything.  I am the Creator, so great that with one word, I spoke your universe into existence.  I sustain all life.  I am the Lord Almighty!

And yet, you worship me with only parts of yourself.  Your hands are raised and you mouth forms the words, but inside your heart, you are playing a tug of war match.  You do not want to give up the idols you have made for yourself.  You tell me it is too hard, that you are too weak, and that you need to kick your addictions slowly, but these are all excuses.  I know that and you know that.  Don't waste your breath.

We both know that if you loved me as whole-heartedly as you claim to, there would be no room in your heart for you to want those idols, let alone cling to them as determinedly as you do.

Because of this, your praise and prayer are a mockery to me.  I wish you would stop.  This has gone on far too long.  How could you hurt me so?  It is not that you are just depriving me of the respect and honor due to me, which you are.  It is even greater that that.  You are spitting on all that I have given you.

I payed with the life of my own son to redeem you from the slavery you had sold yourself into.  You were hideous and wretched, naked and broken, ashamed.  But I loved you.  I clothed you.  I nursed you back to health and I made you beautiful.  I made you whole again.  At first, you loved me back.  You saw the love in my eyes and you could not help but return it.

But then, something happened.  You noticed that others began to admire the beauty you had become.  You flirted with them and begged for their attentions.  Soon, simply talk wasn't enough.  You cheated on me.  You offered yourself to them over and over and over.

"How could you do this to me?" I asked you.  But you pretend there is nothing wrong.  "I am sorry, it's a problem, I know," you tell me.  "I am working on it."  And then you leave again.

"I want you to leave them," I ask, and I see the look in your eyes, the unwillingness to do this.  You tell me I am unreasonable and that you love me more, so isn't that enough? 

But can you not see what you are doing?  You offer me your kiss and your smile as though you believe this is what I want.  And this is the worst insult of all.  Do you really think so little of me?  When I found you, you had not beauty, no future, and nothing to offer.  You had none of the things that you give me now.  But I loved you anyway.  And now you believe you can repay me by simply going through the motions?

How could you believe I want repayment at all?!  I do not want your beauty or your gifts or your empty kisses.  I want you to love me back, with everything you are!  I want you!  How could you not know this?  When did you forget?

Please just stop.  Drop the act, we both know you don't love me as much as you say you do.  If you did, you would not keep these idols, much less worship them.  Quit pretending because you are just insulting me more.  Tell me the truth and let's work on this together.  Give up the other things in your heart and I will woo you.  I will remind you of who you are and then you will remember how much you love me.

Come back to me, my love.

"Return, Israel, to the Lord your God.  Your sins have been your downfall!  Take words with you and return to the Lord.  Say to him: "...We will never again say 'Our gods' to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion." -Hosea 14:1-3