When you see the wreckage of people’s homes floating out to sea, and the devastation twisting up quiet, small town streets, and families wondering where to even begin to pick up their lives… how in the world do things stand in a world flooding with all kinds of catastrophes like this?
How does the sky just suddenly spin mad over the weekend and pelt whole states into a state of emergency?
Who can stand when your heart’s flooded with grief?
So much of life is mystery, but what you can know is: God’s heart overflows in the midst of grief.
“… His heart was filled with pain,” is what He says. {Gen 6:6}
God has a heart. And it hurts. In the face of grief, in the midst of our storms, God’s heart fills not with just with a a few drops of ache, not just with a slow drip of sadness — His whole massive heart fills, swells, burns with this raw, relentless pain.
In the midst of the storm, all of God floods with pain.
Wherever there is brokenness in the world, God’s heart breaks.
What grieving mother could look around at the flooding, and hear her baby crying and forget her little one — what mother could just up and forget her always-baby?
And God whispers hoarse: That mother whose heart is bound to her child’s — doesn’t compare to how your Father’s heart is bound to you. {Isa 49:15}
The Lord of the Universe, He’s lashed Himself to us. And He didn’t need to. But He tied the knot Himself. God who hung the stars, He takes a thread of His heart and ties His to ours. God tied His heart to yours so when you feel pain — He fills with shattering pain.
So when we howl: “If there’s a God who really cares, He’d look at this world and His heart would break.”
And God looks to the Cross and says –– My heart did.
Wherever there is brokenness in the world, God’s heart breaks.
On that Cross, they speared His side and pierced straight into His heart filled with pain and it was the water and blood of His right broken heart that gushed right out.
It’s the quantum physics of God: one broken heart always breaks God’s in two. We never cry alone.
It’s the quantum physics of God: one broken heart always breaks God’s in two. We never cry alone.
And our crying God, He catches every tear in His bottle — God catches every one of our falling tears and He’s keeping us from falling apart.
Weather forecasters keep tracking the storm, keep updating with paths for potential flash flooding.
And there are storms that are only dark canvases for God’s lightning glory.
Storms can be a stage for epic light.
Storms can be a stage for God-light to shine through the Heroes and Givers and Gifters and Rescuers and Responders and Pray-ers.
God catches every one of our falling tears and He’s keeping us from falling apart.
And in the midst of all our storms, this is always true:
Sometimes God will calm the storm for you — but sometimes God will calm you for the storm.
Sometimes God calms the storms — and sometimes the storm stills swirl, and He calms our fears.
All storms ultimately still to the sound of One Voice.
Sometimes God will calm the storm for you — but sometimes God will calm you for the storm.
And there are pray-ers around the world who are keeping prayer watches and God is with us in all the storms. And all I can think is– Very God tied His heart to very ours — and the tears of God are the essence of Time. That’s what the grieving philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote: “Tears are the meaning of history.”
Time only continues on in this impossibly suffering world — because God Himself is willing to keep suffering the impossible with us.
That’s what we all share in the midst of all kinds of storms: God shares in the grief with all of us, and He knows explanations can be cold and His embrace is warm.
In the centre of all our storms, there is the warming light of Christ:
There’s a God who is our Light house, who stays with us and rightly orients us through the storms.
And there’s a God who is our Light house, who knows how storms stir us to love the Light House long after the storms have passed.
And as we watch the news, the forecasts, the skies, and the news of our friends, sometimes we can only nod, not trusting our voices not to break — but trusting, in the midst, in everything, God’s heart breaks with all the broken.
There isn’t a storm anywhere that doesn’t come too with the falling tears of God.