A broken heart can be disheartening (no pun intended) but not as much as ministering with a broken heart. Life has been challenging lately and the reason why this article is coming up late is because I couldn’t find words to write, words to say in order to bring hope, light and minister the way I have always done and the way I started doing it this year particularly (if you have been following me for a while you will know what I am talking about). So I sat down, trying to process my emotions but truly my own heartbreaks, trying to write something, anything. But nothing felt “good enough” to be shared here. But most importantly, nothing sounded real. All the words that I penned down felt like a lie and if I could not identify with it, then certainly people that come here for solace or really just to find something to carry on, would definitely not identify/ relate to it. So I stopped. I prayed and I waited for my heart to settle and for a solid word of encouragement to step on and start building from and here we are today. So if you made it to this article welcome [back] and thank you for your patience.
When people think of ministering, the first thought that comes to their mind is church: preaching, being a pastor and/or hitting those high notes on the choir rehearsal. But ministering really goes beyond the pulpit or the church as a building or a community. Ministering is about God AND the use of the gifts that you have received. And one of my gift is writing. If you have ever been to that space where everything just feels like a constant struggle, where you barely get away with making it day by day when it come to the things life throws your way and if you are as passionate and creative about what you do, then you know how disheartening it can be to not be able to tap into your God-given gifts to inspire/ bring light to people around you. Ministering with a broken heart is hard: when you can’t deliver, when you feel stuck and can’t move, when the taunting voice of Goliath drowns the echo of your faith and the word of God in your heart and you feel defeated, unsure of whether or not you will make it. It is hard. But God is bigger and He is the one who delivers us with a mighty hand.
So how do you minister with a broken heart?
First you go to God and you give it all to Him. Jesus has called us in Matthew 11:28 to come to Him and He will give us rest. So you really, you just go to God: for all the things that just seem to be too much, too painful, too big and too heavy to carry; and you exchange all those heavy burdens for His peace and His rest. He is the only one that can lift up our burdens and lighten our daily load. And Peter in 1 Peter 5:7 is as inviting as is Jesus to go God because He is a a good father than can care for us in ways nobody else would. As you go to God to cast all your cares on Him, you ask Him to give you strength and carry you through whatever it is that you are going through. God can allow some things to come your way but He will ALWAYS - and trust me when I say ALWAYS- show up when you need him and deliver you (Ps 34:19). And God will give you strength to carry on if you rely on Him and Him alone (Ps 55:22). And there is a reason for it: God’s riches supply is unlimited (Eph 3:16) while as human you grow tired and weary. God is the only one who can renew our strengths and keep us going when, to any human being, it seems impossible to overcome some of the difficulties that we may encounter in life. Our ability to overcome will directly depend on our ability to tap into God’s unlimited resources by going to Him. All we have to do is to ask
The next thing to do is arm yourself with patience. A heartbreak doesn’t heal overnight and sometimes it can take a while for God to work through our situations and/or mess. You have to be patient as God perfects His work in your heart and your life. I have come to understand in the various situations and circumstances that have happen during my walk with God that He is the master of time and timing. He is not moved by time or our feelings of being out of time: He moves on his own timing and yet, is never out of time. So if He is never out of time and if perfection – which is defined here by the work of God in our lives- takes time, then there is no need to rush. The end will always be the same: God always wins.
Last but not least, as we constantly go to God exchanging our burdens for his light load our strengths being renewed every day and patiently wait on Him, it is necessary for us to keep our eyes on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. We have to keep our eyes on him because if we don’t, we go back to square one. Why? When we are not looking at him, we are looking at all the things going wrong, and then we get into our feelings and the healing time starts to feel longer and before we know we are looking for something else (or someone else) to heal things, deal with things or mend the things that can only be healed by, dealt with and mended by God. And I know because I have been there. The end sight is not pretty and the consequences and delays are never worth it. Now will all of this be easy? Absolutely not! There will be things and people and situations that will test at least one (if not all) of those things mentioned above. There will be taunting giants trying to discourage you and there will be your flesh and your feelings and your thoughts standing in the way of your healing, restoration and breakthrough. But the good news is they need not win. And if you truly dwell in the Lord and keep your eyes on Him for all and everything, He will get you through it.
Hoping this blessed someone and if you are going through some difficult times, know that things get better and they will because God always wins. Always.
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