I think a lot of Christians at some point have prayed the prayer: Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours. We've asked God to give us the eyes to see his children the way he does and the heart to love them as he does. We've asked God to give us his heart for people.

This is an honest, good prayer. Our desire should be to serve and love our brothers and sisters in Christ, and those who have rejected the faith, because we have the Holy Spirit living in us, which should result in a change of heart and mind. In Ezekiel 36:26, it says "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."

We have the transforming power of Christ living in us and so, the things that break God's heart should also break ours.

But what breaks God's heart? And, are we really ready to have our hearts broken in the same ways and for the same things as God? What does it mean to pray a prayer like that?

God's heart breaks for all of his children. It breaks for those who have loved him their whole lives and for those who've never known him. It breaks for injustice and oppression. It breaks for the sin, disease, loss, grief, pain, confusion, and struggle of his children and of this world. God's heart breaks for those who are in him, struggling to accept grace or to repent. It breaks for the ways his own creation rejects him.

In a world as broken, sinful, and as hurt as ours, God's heart breaks every day for so many things. Because if God is love, then he is constantly being rejected, abused, hurt, and broken.

So, if we ask God to really break our hearts for what breaks his, we are going to experience a lot of intense, vulnerable realities. We will glimpse the depth of our sin and how it breaks God's heart. We will experience broken circumstances and broken people. We will see situations where hope seems nonexistent and God seems far. We will endure hardships, we will grieve with others, we will weep with creation.

Asking God to break our hearts for what breaks his will convict us because we break his heart. Our sin, our rejection of him, breaks his heart. However, if we are in Christ, our sin does not condemn us. We have grace, we are covered by the blood of Christ, and we do not have to be and cannot ever be perfect. But our sin still hurts God because it is an act of rejection and rebellion against him and it results in our pain or the pain of others. If our heart breaks for what God's does, then we will experience the sweet heartbreak of conviction.

We will also experience broken, hurting people. Our eyes will be opened to those who are lost. We'll encounter people who need God more than we could imagine, but who are so far from him, it will seem impossible in our human eyes. Our hearts will break for the children who refuse to accept the gift of grace and freedom that Christ offers. We'll see people who are abused, persecuted, and oppressed in ways we may never have recognized or encountered before. We'll meet devastating realities.

If our hearts break like God's does, we will experience the harsh realities of this world. We will experience grief and despair over the pain, hardships, and brokenness of creation.

However, we will also see the glory of God. We will see how he enters in. He enters in where there is no hope and he brings light. He enters into broken homes, broken families, broken sons, broken daughters, and he restores them. We'll see how he makes distant, lost children into Princes and Princesses, royal heirs to an eternity with Christ. We'll see how he brings comfort, peace, understanding, and joy to the world. We'll see how he is glorified by all creation. We'll see how his mighty authority rules over all the world.

If our hearts break for what God's does, we will mourn, we will grieve, we will writhe in the pain of others, we will be convicted. But, we will also see how our Father heals, restores, and renews the broken. We will see the heart of God.