They say everyone has a breaking point on the Race.
The breaking point is where God breaks your heart and then molds it the way He wants it. This is a choice, of course. You don’t have to let Him mold anything. You can go back to your old ways, falling right back into your old sins, your old pleasures, and aaaaall your old temptations. It’s easy. All it takes if being broken-hearted enough to say, “That’s it, God. It’s too much. I’m tired of seeing human suffering. I can’t help everyone, and I’m too exhausted to deal with the truths of this world anymore.”
I haven’t started the race yet, and I’ve already hit that breaking point. Here’s a snapshot of what it looks like:
All these little threads of hope? They’re all slipping through my fingers and out of reach. I don’t know where they go I just know it’s getting harder and harder to find them each time they disappear.
Basically everything feels like it’s slipping away. You want to give up, you feel like you can’t go any further, and then:
My heart is heavy
With the weight of the world
Crashing down around me
A blistered hand, a broken levee
Heaven knows I carry
The weight of the world upon me
Your heart has hit rock bottom. It’s shattered, and your knee jerk reaction is to be depressed, to let yourself sink…but that’s not what happens. Why? Because it’s not people or things holding you up anymore. Those things are sand in a storm (quicksand if you’ve lived the kind of life I used to live). No, once you let Jesus Christ into your life you’ve built upon a rock. Yes, you may encounter storms (like I was encountering just before training camp); but as Dr. Charles Stanley puts it, you’re secure because God has you in both hands and won’t let go. All you gotta do is hang on.
My storm was short-lived before I felt something stirring inside me again. My heart was mending, and there was a deep hunger burning—it was the hunger to love people the way Jesus loved them. He was teaching my heart how to do that, how to stop relying on my own strength and rely on His strength instead.
Seth Barnes, founder of Adventures in Missions and the World Race, talks about a whisper of something more, the calling that is the Kingdom. And when you answer that call, Jesus will take your heart and mold it and shape it the way He wants it (the way God always intended it). You are no longer a child of the world but a child of the KING. And what does it look like to be a son or daughter of the King?
Be calm like the sea
Wash upon these shores tenderly
Grace this land with your
Mighty hand
Love us all for all
Eternity
Be calm like the sea
Sweetly, Lord, You say to me
“I love thee, child
“Let me hold thee, child
“I cherish thee, O child
“You are my child
“Now be calm, my
“Stormy sea.”
God may seem nonexistent at times, but I’m living proof that He is at work every single day in every single one of our lives. He changes hearts, He lifts people up, and—though at times it may not look exactly like what we see in the Bible—He is our Heavenly Father, and He is giving His children beautiful, wonderful gifts all the time.
Today marks the beginning of a series I’m calling Every Day Miracles. God has blessed me with many miracles, and each week I will take you on a journey through these miracles that I have experienced since beginning my walk with the Lord.
That’s all for now. Be on the lookout for my next blog post later this week. I’ll be talking about Miracle #1: The Case of the Mysterious $98. God be with you!
