Broken Vessel

I haven't really felt like my storehouse has been "full" lately. Every time I think it's full, something else comes along and I find myself either not wanting to replenish, or scrambling to scrape the remnants off the bottom. I know that due to the nature of the Storehouse, I must be missing a some very crucial components...

Thankfully, more and more I do understand why it is so crucial to have the fullness of the Gospel FIRMLY rooted in our hearts EVERY day. I struggle so intensely with applying my sin first, worst, and most. But struggling merely with the appropriation and application of those truths isn't enough...at least not for me. I have not enough struggled with the agony of Jesus Christ in Gethsemane or on the Cross. Whether it was due to my own ignorance of truly understanding the fullness of the Gospel or because my heart had not been made "ready" I don't know.

The agony of Christ anticipating and enduring the Cross has only penetrated my understanding as a physical agony. I have not thought about why there was such pain in Christ's voice as he cried out, "Not my will, but yours," and "Why have you forsaken me?" beyond a physical pain. Golly, am I nearsighted! Christ agonized over the separation from His Father. The price for sin demands total separation. As he waited, sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was fully aware of what was coming...and it grieved him DEEPLY both in awaiting in the Garden AND experiencing it on the Cross.

I knew how this felt last night. I felt totally separated from a man I love and cherish dearly...utterly alone and without hope. I had a tiny, minuscule taste of how Christ felt as he paid that price of separation for my sin. So humbling...so demanding...so worthy of me struggling with the FULLNESS of the Gospel.

This lovely reminder, from Ernest Hemingway, divinely crept into my inbox this morning. And then, from my inbox into the broken depths of my hungry heart:

"The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong in the broken places."

The world does break us. But praise God that He is Who makes us strong and longs to extend a "rich welcome" to us (2 Peter 1:11).