The Heart in the Cross

Like many men, I do some of my best reading while on the throne. Today was no exception in my kingdom -- I'm traveling through SHATTERED DREAMS by Larry Crabb (2001: Water Brook Press). And this is what I read:

"If I were her pastor, I would want to preach in the spirit of the New Covenant, inviting Naomi and everyone in the congregation to see the heart of God revealed in the cross of Christ. I would encourage them to interpret all of life's hardships not as problems to fix or struggles to relieve or pain to deaden, but as important elements in a larger story that all God's children long to tell. I would urge them to accept wherever they are on the journey, whether happy or miserable, as the place where God will meet them, where He loves them, where He will continue to work in them. And I would offer my own life as a growing, struggling, sometimes painfully unattractive example of what doing that might mean." (p. 81, emphasis added)

In Crabb's book (subtitled "God's Unexpected Pathway to Joy"), the Scriptural story of Ruth and Naomi is unpacked. As God, my True Father, leads me on a journey of masculine initiation, I am in search of my heart -- not the "old man" heart of continuous sin but the redeemed heart, created anew in the power of Christ, the heart of flesh, the masculine heart beating with the purpose of the Creator. I offer to you who are reading this a question: What about the heart?

A week ago I inquired of the Lord that very question. His answer to me was quick and decisive: "Be strong for Me, be courageous -- and give to Me your heart. You will be stronger through Me than you ever could be on your own. And your courage will have no end through Mine. Give Me all your heart -- the good, bad, and ugly. I will heal it, and I will love through it."

The Lord is calling to my heart! "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...'" (Genesis 1:26 NASB) I have been made to resemble the Father, Son, and Spirit. So what about the heart? The first mention of "heart" in Scripture comes at the corruption of mankind, when the "wickedness" in man's heart was continual, grieving God in His (Genesis 6:5-6)

I believe, as a follower of Christ, the Christ of the cross, the Christ who redeems and heals the hearts of His believers, that this tells me, as one created in His image, that the heart is meant for good. God's good heart grieved over man's wicked heart, as any True Father would mourn watching the center of His True Son go astray. Each of us as men have elements to a larger story we are desperate to tell -- not only to ourselves, but to each other as men and also to our Eternal Father.

Presently, I am in a Boyhood stage of initiation at the hands of God. He understands that in the past, over many years, I felt missed, wounds were received, and a boy's heart was broken in the war of growing up with a wounded father. "...accept wherever they are on the journey..." Part of the larger story I long to tell my True Father was captured years ago in an article this author wrote for The ManKind Project Louisville (http://www.louisville.mkp.org/ or http://www.mkp.org/) entitled "Is It A Hate Crime To Love Myself?"

"If asked to describe what the war seems like to me, I would say it's constantly a battle of two sides -- one that hates myself against the side that doesn't know how to love...Both sides of the war trade secrets all the time. Casualties are high on any given day. Neither side knows how to win, nor does either army know how to surrender. I sometimes don't want to stop hating myself because all there would be left is this huge bombed-out crater in my soul that would demand peace talks, and then...love. I sometimes don't want to love myself, even when others are loving me, when the peacekeepers arrive and tell me that the war is over...In loving myself I commit no crime...In this war, if nothing changes everything is lost. If I choose the power to change my beliefs of hate towards myself, I open up negotiations towards a settlement between opposing forces. I surrender to the possibility that both sides, even in pain, want peace."

So, another question: "Where, for you, is the wherever on your journey you may not be accepting?" I mean this with all sincerity -- don't look at the men who surround you, whether it be at the office, in church, or in your family. In WILD AT HEART (2001: Thomas Nelson, Inc.), John Eldredge (http://www.ransomedheart.com/) says "The wilderness trial of Christ is, at its core, a test of his identity. 'If you are who you think you are...' If a man is ever to find out who he is and what he's here for, he has got to take that journey for himself. He has got to get his heart back." (p. 6)

I invite you to witness through these postings what growing, struggling, and painfully unattractive looks like to me on the journey of masculine initiation at the hands of God. God will restore me as the Beloved Son. My heart will be healed, strong and courageous, a New Covenant heart in the likeness of its Creator. By His grace amazing, I am ready to believe that there is a place in my Father's heart which no one but me can fill. And that heart -- His and mine -- is in the cross of Christ.

So brothers...men...what about your heart?

The journey continues...