Maybe you're familiar with the heartbreakingly beautiful song Stay by Rihanna featuring Mikky Ekko. The melancholy tone of the music is evident right from the first piano phrase. But the most hopeless part of the song comes during the bridge, when they sing, "The reason I hold on...cause I need this hole gone." In other words, the reason that these two can't give up their relationship - even though it doesn't seem like a good one - is because there's an emptiness inside each of them that they believe the other person can fill.
As much as I wish it wasn't the case, if I'm honest, I think the reason why that phrase has seemed so hopeless is because I have often felt exactly the same way - that there is an inexplicable hole in my heart that refuses to be filled, and all I want is for that hole to just go away. And if I'm even more honest, I have often believed that the only way for that emptiness to be truly filled is with the love of another person. So the way I've frequently taught myself to endure the emptiness is by telling myself that if I can just wait long enough for the man of my dreams to love me, pursue me, and marry me, then that's when the emptiness will finally be gone. That's when my hands will finally be warm, because I will finally be truly loved enough to heat my cold heart.
As I reflected upon this emptiness, I reminded myself that I, of course, couldn't depend upon another person to fill the hole in my heart and that I must look to Jesus to do so. But since I'd been a Christian for a while, yet the emptiness still remained, it made me wonder why it wasn't working - why wasn't Jesus filling the hole in my heart?
After some time, it occurred to me that maybe I was part of the problem. Maybe the reason that Jesus wasn't filling the emptiness was because I was still frantically intent on filling it with other things, and as long as I attempted to do so, that hole would never be filled. And I would never live the life God created me for - to love and worship Him above all other things and to love others as Jesus did.
So I decided to try something. I wasn't really sure what it would even be or what it would look like. But I knew that something had to change. I had to change. And considering how the Lord changes human hearts, I knew it had to involve repentance. And I knew that it would specifically have to involve fighting against my relationship idol. So that's what I decided to focus on. Here's how:
Each day, for the past month or so, I've been reflecting on 1 Corinthians 7:34-35, "And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord." So as I've been praying, I make it a point to pray that the Lord would help me to make it my aim to be holy in body and spirit and to help me have a heart of undivided devotion to Him.
At the end of each day, in order to ensure that I am making repentance a priority, I have been taking time to write down my prayers of repentance on little note cards. I specifically focus on asking His forgiveness for the ways I have not chosen to love Him with undivided devotion or have not made it my main aim to be holy. And I ask the Lord to radically change my heart and my life.
Then I ask Him to burn my bridges down.
Here's when some more lyrics come into play.
My roommate Tori and I have been in a phase where we listen to OneRepublic's Native album on repeat. And there's one song in particular that has deeply impacted me. It's called Burning Bridges. Check it out:
"You and I were meant to be
Ain't no doubt about it
No way to hide that sort of thing
Now I’m waiting for something better
Ain't nothing better worth imagining
I, I keep on running
I’m building bridges that I know you never wanted
Look for my heart
You stole it away
Now on every single road that I could take
Listen, I want you to burn my bridges down
I said, I want you to burn my bridges down
Set me on Fire
You set me
Set me on Fire
You can burn my bridges down"
Honestly, I'm not totally sure why Ryan Tedder wanted to sing about this. But one thing I'm sure of is that these lyrics have really challenged me in my relationship with God. Because they have helped take me to the next level in truly seeking a lifestyle of deep repentance. Let me explain.
If my relationship with God is an exclusive relationship where He's meant to be the number one love of my life, then for me to search for something better, run away from Him, and look for satisfaction and fulfillment in other places by "building bridges" to worship things that God never intended me to worship, then that's a real problem. That's sin and idolatry. But in His goodness, He very lovingly chases me down as I'm running away from Him. And most of the time, I continue to fight against Him to try to get what I want. Typically, I don't pray for Him to take the things that I'm worshipping away from me; instead I pray that He would let me have them. Or I don't pray about them at all. I just build my life around getting what I want.
So that's why a prayer that God would "burn my bridges down," or take my idols away, has become a crucial part of my repentance. Then when I see things going opposite to what I would like, it seems much more obvious that God is answering my prayers and that He's helping me to stop worshipping idols in order that I would worship Him with a heart that's set on fire with love for Him.
Now, I make no claims that I'm an expert in repentance or having any of this figured out, but the fact that Jesus died for moral failures like me gives me confidence that I will be fully accepted by the Lord despite my best attempts to be holy, and it frees me to pursue Him all the more. So I do think I've truly seen a change in my life over the past month. The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead has been working to bring life to my once dead heart so that I now have a heart that is increasingly intent on trusting and loving Him. Where there was hopelessness, there is now joy and contentment. And my circumstances haven't changed. It's just that the Lord has given me a renewed commitment to the fact that I would ultimately rather have Him crush my idols than for Him to simply let me have what I want, only to let me find that the hole in my heart still remains. He must be my source of life. That's the way He intended it to be. He even died that I could have true life through Him. (John 10:10-11) And what's funny is the more time I've spent asking the Lord to change me rather than trying to get the things that I want, the less I've even been aware of that hole. Maybe there's something to this repentance thing after all...
So thankful that He's insistent upon burning my bridges down and reminding me that
Loving Him is Red!
In what ways have you dealt with your own hole in your heart?
What has worked to fill the emptiness?
What would it look like to take steps of repentance and ask the Lord to "burn your bridges down"?
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