Ripped Open

And every heart,
And every soul,
And every body
Has got a God shaped hole

“God Shaped Hole”
Audio Adrenaline

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26

Do you watch medical shows? I do on occasion and I remember fondly the days of Marcus Welby, M.D. when they didn’t show things in such living color. The producers of the current day medical dramas want us to believe that we are watching real surgery and they get as close as they can to looking like the actual event. It’s graphic and it’s gross.

I especially dislike the heart scenes where they pry open the chest, which we see and hear leaving, for me, no comfort zone. These are not the shows to watch while eating popcorn or, heaven help us, salsa. I doubt very much that real heart surgery includes the banter about who’s dating who and why someone else is getting divorced. I certainly hope that true medical professionals keep their minds on the task at hand. I do think the breaking sounds and puddles of blood are probably pretty accurate. Think about the words, open --- heart --- surgery. There it is the life force of your body, exposed and bleeding. I can’t imagine what goes through a person’s mind when they know that is in front of them.

That cracked open chest, fully exposed heart is exactly what God wants from us. The guys in Audio Adrenaline say it so well, “and every body has got a God shaped hole.” We do, all of us, every body. So how do we fill it? With God? No, not right away. Most of us try many other things before we turn to God. We try busy work, books, friends, food, drugs, alcohol and sex, to name a few things. None of it works. When finally we recognize that the hole is built only for God we wait hoping He will just slip in quietly. He can’t we’ve shoved too much junk into his space.

So how does he get in there? Open Heart Surgery It’s the only way. He rips our hearts open exposes the poisons for what they are and then begins to lovingly heal and fill the space that was his all along.

Even those of us who have invited God in forget that we have stashed away some habits that take us so far from the will of God. We give our time to projects that do not bring glory to his name or worse indulge in practices that disappoint God and harm us. We feel empty and alone because we’ve taken God out of his rightful place.
Let the Lord of the universe perform open-heart surgery on you. It’s painful and messy but well worth the aggravation. If we open ourselves up to God, He will truly set us free.

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