The Heart Of God

           
            I would like to address today all the hurting, desperate, souls looking for answers. In a world growing ever more complex day by day it is vital to be reminded of certain realities. One of many things that each and every one of us shares is the reality of pain. Right now there are millions of hearts, all over the world for which the challenges of life are more than they can bear.


I would address the single parent, faced with the pressures of every day life. There are so many things to worry about. The inner city mother who worries from day to day how she is going to just provide for her children the basics of life. The fears that daily clutch at her heart as she gets her children prepared for school and sends them out into a world that is so potentially dangerous and uncertain. No one knows the pressures she faces each day. No matter how hard she works, there never seems to be enough time or money to cope with all she has to deal with.

There are so many others who simply cannot cope at all. These are the wounded ones who turn to drugs or alcohol in a desperate attempt to deal with the pain they carry in their hearts. So many in our world have never experienced compassion, or love, or understanding. They carry within their hearts the memories of a lifetime of abuse in one way or another. In a world inhabited by billions they live out their lives in isolation. They walk through life in a chemically induced emotional coma. Their pain is so great that the only way they have found to cope is to not cope at all.

I would speak to these and all others who feel like they have slipped through the cracks and whose hearts each day are filled with so much pain and uncertainty. There is one to whom you can turn in your desperation. One who knows your pain and weeps for the despair and hurt that each and every one of you carries. Jesus Christ two thousand years ago underwent a death unlike any other before or since. He was God in the flesh and he came to earth on a divine mission. He said I have come to give them life, and life in abundance.

He like so many of the hurting around us suffered alone. He was crucified for no crimes that he had committed. He had lived a life of compassion and understanding. He reached out a hand of mercy to one and all that came to him for help. Yet the very ones he loved cried out at his trial crucify him. His heart was tender, loving, and full of mercy. Yet he knew that by dying he would bring a new hope to all suffering humanity for all time to come.

Jesus rose from the dead and by so doing opened the door to all who would ever live after him to the heart of God. His message has never changed. To that wounded heart that has never known compassion his voice is calling out to you wherever you may be. I speak not of a religious icon, or a figure from history. No my suffering friend he is reaching out to you even now. His great desire is that you would come to him with all your faults, and all your cares. He wishes to share your pain that he may give you his love.

For his is a voice of compassion and understanding. He will lift from you the pain and suffering that grips your heart. He died for all your wounds and hurts. He promised that any that would come to him he would never turn away. Open your heart to him, trust him with your pain and sorrow, and he will wipe away all your tears, give you answers for your despair, and hope that will last even beyond the grave. To the wounded he says come and I will give you life and love.