The Excellency of a Broken Heart

Tears cried upon their shoulders are the battle scars reserved for the men of men. I do also want to see the ones upon the flesh. I am interested in courage and in bravery and wars fought with sinew and guts, but if a man has no tender and breakable heart I wish not to see him upon my battlefields. For the battles we face are “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12) They are against the ripped and bleeding hearts of abused women and the pain of children who have no parents. Our battles are against the ravages of divorce and the wounds of daddies who never told their little boys they were real men. They are against the hollowness of heart left by the veneer of American prosperity. We fight the demons of shattered dreams and contentment that never came.

The men whom I wish to be counted among have had their season on the road of tears and been adorned with sackcloth and ashes for themselves as well as those they hold dear. They could deliver a deathblow but would rather take one for a friend. I am not a pacifist, but how am I to respect a man that has never held a broken heart in his hands and tried to mend it? Can a man load a rifle? That is good; I wish to learn from him. Can a man weep with those who weep? That is better; I aspire to remain at the feet of such a man until I my heart bleeds as his does.

(Credit to John Bunyan, a great man of God who suffered much in his life, for the title of this blog entry. I don't deserve to use it, but it seemed quite appropriate.)