O.K. Follow me on this because I’m going to start
off talking about architecture and end up talking about the deepest, most
important part of you.
Buildings breathe. And I’m not talking about ventilation.
As the temperature around a building
changes, the walls expand and contract like lungs. Engineers call this thermal
expansion . If the material doesn’t breathe
well enough it cracks, like my driveway. Thermal cracks usually
form at corners and joints where material of different types or densities come
apart because they don’t “breathe together.”
The most common fix is to spackle the
gap with something gooey and quick-hardening.
Unfortunately, this usually adds a third type of material which breathes
differently from the rest of the building, so eventually the site of the repair
becomes the location of another, new and worse break.
(Side note: one of the reasons the great pyramids of
Egypt have lasted for thousands of years with very few new cracks is that the
Egyptians used the same material throughout the entire structure.)
Your life is a built structure
formed from biological, psychological, circumstantial, experiential, and
spiritual materials. Your heart and soul
hold all of these materials together, but over time, through the ups and downs,
the exhales and inhales of living, cracks form.
The heart breaks.
We try to fill the gaps in our
souls with all kinds of quick fixes: drugs, alcohol, sex, violence, money,
work, etc. etc. But more and more of us look
for a filler in social media. We log on and ask the world to plug the holes in
our souls with whatever’s streaming, trending, or posting to our feeds. We let corporations and people we don’t really
know fill us with whatever they decide they want to put in us today.
Only, you and I are not made of whatever. Your
consciousness is made of spirit breathed out of God Himself.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of
the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living being. (Genesis
2:7)
So, the content you use to fill
the gaps in your time and attention don’t match the original material from
which you were made. It doesn’t breathe
right. For a while, the hole in you is
filled, but over time new and worse brokenness emerges.
That’s why you feel so empty so
often.
The typical response is to just
pour more whatever into the new cracks in your soul, but that just exacerbates
the problem. May I offer a better and truly
lasting solution?
Remember, your consciousness
(heart and soul) are made of Spirit. Jesus
described the Holy Spirit as living water: the conscious, fluid presence of
God.
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and
drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of
his heart will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke concerning the
Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive. (John 7:37-39)
Because the Holy Ghost is
conscious, He understands your brokenness.
The Bible teaches that God knows the pattern of hair follicles on your
head.
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
(Matthew 10:30)
He knows the place and pain behind
every tear you’ve ever shed.
You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle. Are they not in
Your book? (Psalm
56:8)
And God knows the pattern of
cracks in your broken heart.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their
wounds. (Psalm 147:3)
Because the Holy Spirit is fluid,
He fills every empty and broken space while
letting you still be you. The Holy
Spirit will repair brokenness in your soul with the original material from
which it was breathed. (If you let Him.)
Unlike the Krazy glue on that cup
way in the back of your cupboard, the Holy Ghost won’t finish stiff and
tacky. Unlike the caulk pushed into
that gap in your window frame, the Holy Spirit won’t make you hard or
flaky. Unlike the discongruous filler
material spackled into the gaps of man’s aging architecture, the Holy Spirit breathes
with you. Rather, when you are filled
with the Holy Ghost you come to breathe with the very Breath of life in
you. Out of you will flow living water.
You are too fearfully and
wonderfully made to spot your life all over with whatever the world decides to
use on you any given internet news cycle.
That’s stuff’s O.K. for adornment and use in a few places, but don’t let
it infiltrate the core structure that holds you up.
Instead, focus on God. Fill your heart with His Word, His praise, His presence.
the peace of God, which surpasses all
understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally,
brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are
just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are
of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate
on these things. (Philippians
4:7-8)
Let God pour through you and then just --- be still. Allow time for the Holy Spirit to settle into yourself. Meditate on Jesus. Breathe with His Spirit in you, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
When your heart breaks, fill it with the original Spiritual building material.
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson
T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth
Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural leadership
development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
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