Valleys of Sorrow to Rivers of Joy

I have had the Jars of Clay song, Worlds Apart, on my blog for a while now. I was listening to it this morning and wasn't really listening to words that closely until something in the words, take my world apart, struck my heart. All of the sudden I stopped and realized that this is what God was doing. This is why there has been the sharp and clinging pain of my heart being stretched every morning for the past few days. I started the song again and listened closely to the words.

Take my world apart!
Broken on my knees...

As I listened to the words, God began to speak into my heart even more. My days this past week have been filled with this time of being broken on my knees. These times have been good though because I have come away knowing and feeling closer to Him.

It takes all I am to believe
in the mercy that covers me.

Every morning this week I have had to pour my heart out over and over, many times with tears, longing for Christ to own my whole heart. This is the way that God has designed it, that He requires all of me and nothing less than all of me. In return though (and this is so wonderful), He gives all of Himself, which is so much more than I could ever want! Oh, but to escape this sinful frame that would try to hold my heart back from being wholly His!

Because what I need and what I believe are worlds apart.

This is what I have felt every morning this week. What I need is to be unreservedly and wholly given to Him. What I believe has been so far from this. And by believe, I mean for my heart to truly know and feel in fullness. It takes these trials and confusing times that bring me to my knees in order to bring what I need and what I believe together. My heart wants this so badly and yet were it not for these times of dim surroundings, I know my heart would never be crying out with such desperation to be one with God's heart.

The last words of the song are my favorite because they leave me standing on the hill of Calvary staring at an empty cross. It was the cross that made the merging my heart and the Father's heart possible. And so as my tear-filled and needful gaze falls on the cross, I want to give Him my all because Christ gives all of Himself.

I look beyond the empty cross...

When I look beyond the empty cross, I see what Christ saw when He looked beyond the cross. Joy.

...who for the joy set before him endured the cross.
Hebrews 12:2

Christ saw joy beyond the cross and so, as I face sufferings and feelings of despair, I must see the joy that lies beyond them and even in the midst of them. I listened to another one of my favorite Jars of Clay songs this morning and God used it to awaken my heart to joy in the midst of all these thoughts.

I will sing of your mercies
that lead me through valleys of sorrow
to rivers of joy. :)

Yes, He takes my world apart, but in return He gives me rivers of joy. These rivers of joy come from the cross and so I must always go there to find them in fullness. It is in the suffering I find at the cross that I taste the joy that lies beyond and within it.

"But as it is written, 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.'"
1 Corinthians 2:9