Matthew 24:12 “Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold.”
I read an e-mail recently and this quote from C.S. Lewis was on the bottom of the page; “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
The quote reminded me of the story of the Tin Man from the “Land of Oz books, by L. Frank Braum, (The Wizard of Oz). The Tin Man was originally a man named Nick Chopper a woodsman who is in love with a young munchkin girl named Nimee Amee. They plan to be married but an old woman that Nimee works for does not want to lose her. She pays a witch to curse Nick’s ax. The ax is cursed and as Nick is working cutting down trees to build a life for him and Nimee his ax begins to cause accidents. After each accident Nick looses body parts one by one. A tinsmith replaces his body parts with tin. He finally has an accident that injures his heart and the tinsmith patches him up but without a heart. With each accident Nick would lose a part of himself. He would find himself separating more and more from Nimee. Until finally he forgets about Nimee, he is no longer able to love. He loses Nimee, his heart has been replaced by tin.
“The love of many will grow cold.” All of us know that loving does hurt, we do get hurt and sometimes we get deeply wounded. It feels like a knife or and ax has opened a gaping wound leaving us exposed and bleeding. We can be like the tin man and put on armor becoming less and less human. We can build up walls that no one will ever again penetrate. We can turn to our work and look only to the next task in front of us, forgetting our dreams and what we are working toward. Our hearts will become, “unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
God looks at our hearts, 1 Samuel 16:7 “As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the person.” Proverbs 27:19 Solomon said Give me an understanding heart 1 Kings 3:9 “Light shines on the godly, and joy on those whose hearts are right.” Psalm 97:11 Five hundred and seventy verses talk about our heart in the Bible, we must be vulnerable we cannot let our hearts grow cold.
“The love of many will grow cold.” All of us know that loving does hurt, we do get hurt and sometimes we get deeply wounded. It feels like a knife or and ax has opened a gaping wound leaving us exposed and bleeding. We can be like the tin man and put on armor becoming less and less human. We can build up walls that no one will ever again penetrate. We can turn to our work and look only to the next task in front of us, forgetting our dreams and what we are working toward. Our hearts will become, “unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
God looks at our hearts, 1 Samuel 16:7 “As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the person.” Proverbs 27:19 Solomon said Give me an understanding heart 1 Kings 3:9 “Light shines on the godly, and joy on those whose hearts are right.” Psalm 97:11 Five hundred and seventy verses talk about our heart in the Bible, we must be vulnerable we cannot let our hearts grow cold.
No comments:
Post a Comment