Have you ever seen a broken heart?

In life, in missions, in business it’s important to be reminded why it is that you do what you do. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to work out of my house and it’s a wonderful motivator to be able to spend time during the day with my amazing family. When I was leading strategic research projects for Fortune 500 companies, the highlight of the engagement was always to see the client face to face and to provide new insight into their business challenges. As an Elder of my church it is an honor to sit and tearfully bring praise and pleading before the Lord with the men and women I worship with.

As the body of Christ we are Christ’s envoys to the world today. His rescue mission is our rescue mission. Tonight I got a first hand look at a broken, shriveled, and hardened heart. The kind of heart that only the pure and perfect love of Jesus can heal.

I participate in a ministry every Thursday night called EMS (short for Elementary and Middle School). We provide dinner, playtime and Bible lessons for about 50 kids in our neighborhood. Tonight one of the boys came in looking for a fight. During playtime he got in the face of one of the leaders for no apparent reason. During the lesson, things just blew up and he had to be escorted out. Fortunately a fight did not happen but this kid was made. And when his dad came to pick him up he was mad too, and he yelled at one of the leaders.

It was scary and sad and maddening all at the same time. And to see the hurt and anger rooted deep in this boy’s heart reminded me why we do this. I am a Kingdom Strategist, I am in my God given glory when I am working with organizations creating strategies for improving their ministry and service efforts. I work with strategies, ideas, principles, trends, research, organizational design, programs… conceptual tools for coordinating the efforts of multiple people. But none of it is effective if I am not humbled and constantly reminded that my heart was once broken, shriveled, and hardened too. And every Kingdom strategy, no matter how creative, is empty if it is not rooted in the very truth that only the free grace of Christ can pour love into the hearts of those we seek to serve.

Father God, thank you for Your grace which is the power to heal my heart and others. Please work powerfully in the lives of the young men and women of EMS. Pour your love into their hearts and in their lives that they may be redeemed. Amen.