Thursday, March 19, 2015

Broken Toys, Broken World

I am one ambitious Mama. In addition to the title Mama, I am also a surgeon, mechanic, engineer, and contractor. Yep...I sew up dolls, repair cars and trains, replace batteries in less than 30 seconds, build houses out of blocks, and create tents out of blankets and sheets. According to my son, I am the person to go to when he needs something fixed or built. So when my son Brayden entered the room with his broken car track toy, I rolled up my sleeves to get to work, but to my surprise, Brayden said, "No!" And proceeded to try to fix it himself. Ever wonder why people don't hire 2 year olds to fix things? Here's why...notice the before and after....
Brayden's beautiful Car track went from having one broken piece to three broken pieces. As hard as he tried, my precious boy just couldn't fix it. His little hands were like butter, and the pieces kept slipping out of them. After about two minutes of trying, Brayden started to cry like his world had ended, which it probably had since his cars were his number one thing in his life.  A little bit later, with red eyes and a defeated look on his face, I heard the magic words, "Help, pleaaaaasssse!" 

"Sure, Brayden," I responded, and proceeded to do my magic. A few minutes later, Tadaaaaaa.....here is what this amazing mom can do
Ahhhhh..perfect! Am I da bomb or what?!?!? 
Brayden happily took his car track back in his room and continued playing, my head shrunk back to its normal size, and all was right in the world.

Here is the point of this story. Isn't our world like Brayden's toy? Broken....messed up, in need of repair, worthless, a piece of junk because it doesn't work properly.  Ever since the beginning of the world, when mankind rebelled against God, we set ourselves up for alot of heartache. The moment we decided to do things our way, we set ourselves up for disaster, and when we started doing things apart from God's way, the result will always be a broken world. A world full of sin, pain, wickedness, disaster, death, and disease. It results with people with broken hearts. People like to think they can repair the world themselves,  fix their own lives, or find something else to fix it for themselves. Brayden turned to his own skill to fix his car track, but in the end, it only made things worse. People turn to drugs, money, sex, alcohol, spouses, friends, and many other broken things to fix the hole in their hearts. But broken things fixing broken things creates an even more broken thing.  After Brayden realized that nothing he was doing worked and that he was making it worse, he turned to his amazing spectacular supermom (Ok..regular good ole mom) to fix his car track.  People begin to realize the same thing with God. After trying to fix their hearts with the things of the world and failing every time, they hit rock bottom and realize that Jesus is the only way their hearts will be fixed. Jesus takes a broken heart that is worthless and beyond repair and makes it special.

With Jesus, a person whose heart is full of wickedness becomes righteous and holy. Righteous means "right standing with God." Before Jesus, we were unable to have a relationship with a God who so desires to have a relationship with us, because we chose to do things our way, apart from him.  Jesus became the bridge that allows us to be rejoined with God and become righteous. While we still live in a broken body that still messes up, the heart has now been repaired and desires to do things God's way. The heart is made perfect through Jesus. 

People might ask, "Well, Katrina, if Jesus has fixed people's hearts, why doesn't he just go ahead and fix the world? Why doesn't he remove death, disease, pain, and suffering? Is God not capable of doing that?"  My answer is, "Yes, he is capable, and he will restore things to the way they should be someday, but meanwhile, He allows it because it is the only way to draw people to him."  If God fixed everything and healed every person and protected every love one from heartache and suffering, they would never realize that there was a problem in this world and with people's hearts, and people would never see their need for Him. Brokeness helps people see their need for God after we tragically messed up our relationship with Him long ago.

God sent his son, Jesus, who was without sin or wickedness to take away our wickedness. He paid a debt we could not pay and repaired something we could not repair by dying on the cross and defeating death three days later. God has already started fixing this broken world through Jesus. He is repairing the hearts of those who want to be fixed and sadly releases those who don't want their hearts repaired to judgement and eternal seperation from Him...in otherwords hell. God doesn't force people to turn to him..He is too loving to do that...He is not a dictator....he gives us a choice like he did a long time ago when we chose a life without Him. And someday, after giving everyone a chance to get their hearts repaired, He will restore this world to the way it used to be, perfect...just like I did with Brayden's car track. 

Jesus fixes hearts because he loves us. He was willing to die for us so that we can be restored to Him and not spend eternity away from Him. The Bible says, "Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends."  (John 15:3) Jesus didn't lay down his life for just a friend, but for every person in this world! What amazing love. All you have to do is ask him to fix your heart. He can and will...