Love in a Broken World

The firebush photo commemorates Pentecost, June 5, which celebrates the arrival of the Holy Spirit. Our best hope is always to turn toward the Spirit.

Last Sunday my pastor’s message was titled “Love in a Broken World.” She gave a fine sermon, a response to the violence especially in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York. She spoke about brokenness and referred to the congregation as the “raggedy, worn-out, tired … committed to a better world.”

The truth is, we were already broken before the May 14 and May 24 shootings. And we will remain broken after all the so-recently-killed have been buried. It’s just that for the families impacted by those events, the brokenness is now unbearably intense.

“Everyday Spirituality” has not, as a rule, attempted a response to the cruel catastrophes of life, the moments when the entire nation rallies at the horror of another unspeakable event. Rather, this blog is about spirituality in the everyday times—not so much the peaks and valleys but the flatter expanses of ordinary life. Even in those times there is pain, and that is the pain of brokenness.

Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, said recently in a TBN interview that we pray in the Lord’s Prayer “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven” because in Heaven God’s will is done “perfectly, completely, instantly, and continuously.” But on Earth, Warren said, none of that is true; everything is broken on this planet.

It is into that reality of brokenness that we bring love. If we believe that God is love, then love has to be our response to brokenness. Anything else would only deepen the pain.

The challenge is to turn always to the Holy Spirit, not just at Pentecost but everywhere we see the need for love in our world.