Rending our hearts.

“‘Yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart… and rend your hearts and not your garments.’ Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” -Joel 2:12-13

When I first read the word 'rend,' I honestly had no idea what it meant. I thought it sounded fancy and a nice way to explain giving our hearts to God.

Yeah, it means "to rip or tear apart." "To remove by violence." "To lacerate mentally or emotionally."

Uh... what?

Rip your hearts apart? Whatchutalkingbout, God?

But mulling over the text more, it makes sense, even if it wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. 

Returning to God and repenting of our sins is hard. Sins are often something we want to hold on to because they make us comfortable or it's easy to keep on doing them. We clutch them frantically, and whenever we hear a story in the Bible, we justify that it doesn't apply to us or that our sin isn't that big of a deal. We hide  our idols away and pretend like everything is okay. 

God wants our whole hearts, however. He doesn't want our heart to be holding on to any sins, no matter how petty or small they may seem. 

And getting rid of them is often painful. It's not fun. It's so much easier to hold onto them and keep living comfortably. Repenting requires us to tear our hearts and to weep over our sins, over the great offenses that we have committed against Christ, against our Savior, Provision, and King. It's messy and it hurts to violently rid our bodies of sin. It requires us to give up certain possessions, actions, or thoughts to Him. It requires us to get into the mess of people and love them [that's what I struggle with the most]. It requires us to admit that we're wrong and ask forgiveness from others. It requires us to lose our pride and expose our ugliness.

I've always associated tearing garments in the Bible with people being distressed and mournful over something.  Usually when I'm upset about something, I cry and call one of my friends and eat some chocolate. 

But the people in the Bible would tear their clothes, weep aloud, fast, and cry out to the Lord. Why aren't we this way about our sin? I guess I often don't realize how sinning is kinda like taking Jesus's offer of salvation and his death on the cross, and slapping Him in the face instead. It's just so disrespectful after the huge sacrifice and grace that he's given us. 

I should weep and tear my heart over my sin. I should fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness and pray to never do it again. I should desperately ask God to cleanse me of my unrighteousness. I hope that realizing the depth of my sin can help me assume this posture of true repentance as part of my sanctification. 

The Lord knows we'll fail. And that we'll sin again, many, many more times. But we don't have to come to Him in a position of hopelessness from our mistakes or fear of our actions. He tells us that He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. How incredible is that? It makes the process of rending our hearts so much better because afterwards, we know that we can be held in the loving arms of our Father. 

Thank you, Lord, for continuing to love me after all the mess I put you through. I'm sorry for the ugliness of my heart; your sacrifice for us was the ultimate provision, and I don't ever want to take it lightly.  I want to be Yours and Yours alone. I pray for help repenting and turning to righteousness. Help me rend my heart and make it yours.