Today, I stop and pause at the things that make God's heart grieve. Can you imagine the thrill that went behind a Master Designer, the Painter, the Sculptor who first put His hands to create; the first Being ever to speak His thoughts, and then to produce them on a dark canvas? There was light. There was water. There were plants and animals. There was a man. And there was praise, for the very first time, from flesh and blood, and the angelic now created. There were voices drifting up into the ears and heart of the One who had existed all alone before there was the created. The song that has become so familiar--"I Can Only Imagine", was first spoken by the One who created the wonder of it all, Who says to us now, "You could only imagine what that day was like".
He stepped away from the canvas, and all it would continue to produce, and saw His work as good. In fact, it was very good. And then, the Creator rested. And then, He blessed and sanctified all of it. He had breathed life from His very own nostrils into the assigned cultivator, and He delighted in the possibilities of a relationship with another soul for yet another first.
With all that was within Him, He would pour out His blessings; in fact, He would lavish them. And for a time, the created would accept those blessings from His hand. But then, the man desired something that his Creator did not want him to have; a desire to live independently from Him. He had given him everything--"every good and every perfect thing" (James 1:17)--but He would not give Him an allowance to rebel against His commands, and then turn a blind eye.
What was that moment like for God? What was it like when the Creator went looking for His creation? As the Sculptor moved toward the now broken, what did each step feel like? How did His voice sound when He called out, "Where are you?" I don't hear Voice speak in the frantic. And I know that it wasn't a geographical question from the all-knowing One. I think it was a heart-sick, crack in your voice question that said, "Now I have to act; now I have to punish", and that's an awful, awful feeling when the parent loves their child. The child may think the father takes delight in the strike, but there is never a blow delivered that does not hit harder than the one that tears at the heart of the giver.
The Creator would continue to pursue, and He would continue to confront the now wicked and evil heart of His created. He had been forced to discipline; He had been forced to judge. He had been forced to grieve. The perfect, holy heart of the Almighty would now suffer,...for the very first time.
The Creator loves His created, and there is no disobedience strong enough to change that. The Master Sculptor wants His masterpiece back whole, and the only way to have the whole is to mend the broken.
And so, the clay cries out to the Potter, and says, "Oh Father! I am broken into a million pieces. Please take my broken, wicked heart and make it good again; make it very good".
