Cries of the Heart: The Cry of a Lonely Heart

I read this week’s chapter as a woman who has struggled with loneliness in several different settings. Language school was a lonely time as I learned to live in Latin America with my husband and two babies. No one else from our mission was there, and while we built friendships, it seemed we were just getting close and comfortable with a few people when it was time to move to Venezuela. And, once there, I was again lonely.

As missionaries in a declared Catholic town, we weren’t allowed to attend church. Our town was very isolated—people traveled by river or by the expensive, once-a-day flight to the capitol. All strangers were suspect—including Venezuelans from different parts of the country. Over the years we made great friends, but those first years were lonely as my husband was away long hours each day flying for missionaries living in the jungle while I was at home with babies and the HF radio to keep in touch with the pilots with no car, no phone, and no neighbors.

Those early years of loneliness taught me many lessons—lessons I’ve learned a lot more than once! And, now, many years later, we’re on the move again and I’m facing that same loneliness. I miss having familiar faces in my life, knowing my community, living near friends and family. Even as I write this I know we’re moving again—I just don’t know when or where. Life is changing again.

The lessons I’ve learned have been rich, and sometimes, time and place specific. Sometimes the lessons have had to be repeated, but often God has had new things for me to learn. Ravi’s lesson on loneliness includes concepts I’ve never before considered, like, “Our experience of loneliness is universal, and love alone is not the answer. There is a ‘beyond’ in all of us that love does not satisfy.” As I’ve thought about that sentence, I think it explains some of my loneliness.

This may be our deepest chapter to read yet.

I know the concepts tended to fly over my head as I read and I needed soak time to consider if what Ravi wrote made sense to me. With time, I think I’ve come to understand what he is saying. This week, as you write your response on our blog, instead of just responding to what Ravi writes about, would you be willing to write about a lonely episode in your own life and the lessons you learned during that time? We’d find your insights helpful.

And, if you are dealing with loneliness right now, maybe you’d like to pose a question for us. We can prayerfully respond to each other and hopefully be an encouragement to one another.

Cries of the Heart: The Cry for Freedom in Pleasure

Honestly, this isn’t my favorite chapter in our study.

Pleasure seems to be something the church hasn’t known how to deal with or teach—and I’ve been strangely OK with that. I’m a bit of a serious person—maybe that is why I’ve not struggled with pleasure the way I’ve wrestled with pain and suffering. But, taking time to consider where pleasure fits into God’s heart for us is important and worth the time it takes to dig into and honestly think about pleasure.

A question that Ravi poses at the first of this chapter captured my attention. “Is it not also instructive of our bias that society popularly brands all tragedies as ‘acts of God’ but fails to attribute equal credit when we enjoy something good?” At this point, Ravi has my attention because this is an observation I can agree with. He goes on to share 3 principles and 3 applications about pleasure in this chapter. And that is what I’d like us to focus on this week as we read. Please choose one of the principles and one of the applications to write your comments about. It can be that you agree or disagree with him—or you can see ways to apply his points in your life.

I’m looking forward to re-reading this chapter and considering how I can grow in my understanding of pleasure. Your comments will be very instructive and helpful for me—I hope to hear from you!

Cries of the Heart: The Cry of a Guilty Conscience

Chapter 4: The Cry of a Guilty Conscience

This chapter stirred my heart as I read of six different ways people deal with their guilt. Except for the last, these mechanisms are useless and add pain to our lives. Only the last way of surrendering our guilt to God’s grace can bring the freedom from guilt and sin that we so desperately need. But, it is sad to realize that we often default to irreverence, pride, fear, devalue it from a cultural perspective, or declare ourselves innocent. What bondage and pain we endure when we don’t bring our guilt to our Savior.

Which makes me ask the hard question—how do I deal with guilt? What do I do with my short-comings, weaknesses, sins? Do I treat them differently? Are some given readily to God and others explained away, or made excuses for? Do I justify, cover up, minimize? I’m afraid I have tendencies to do each of these.

In this Easter season when we remember our Lord’s death and resurrection, it seems so sad to me that my response to my sin sometimes ignores the incredible painful price He paid for my sin. Ravi says, “Only in the admission of sin is there a genuine restoration, because guilt is first a vertical problem before it is a horizontal one. God is the one who has been violated before humanity has been wronged.”

He also says, “I have a Savior for you. He went to the cross to carry that penalty and pay our price. It was not cheap; it was God’s priceless gift of His Son to bear the guilt brought by the sin of the world.”

We have been so blessed by Christ’s death—by the price He paid. As followers of Christ, we believe He died for our sins and rose again. But, sometimes, in the blush of realizing our guilt in daily sins, we don’t live what we believe—at least I don’t always live this truth.

So my questions for us this week are:

• How do you respond to your guilt? The past guilt? The present, daily guilt?


• How do you live every day as a person set free from death to life? Or, do you?


• What helps you respond with humility and acceptance of God’s grace when confronted with guilt?

I look forward to letting the Holy Spirit search my heart this week and writing my response on our blog. I hope you’ll be posting your thoughts there, too.

As I close, I offer this prayer for us:

Dear Forgiving God, who with unimaginable sacrifice paid for all the sins of the world—and all of ours, please help us to realize when our pride refuses your forgiveness for whatever reason. Please help us to turn to you in humility and genuine repentance to receive your grace, mercy and forgiveness. Help us to see the times we ignore, hide, minimize, trivialize, or justify our guilt and free us from those prisons. We love you, our amazing Heavenly Father, our generous and loving Savior, our faithful Teacher and Comforter.
Amen.

Cries of the Heart: The Cry for a Reason in Suffering

Chapter 3: The Cry for a Reason in Suffering

Suffering has hit me hard in life. My father was very ill and died when I was a child. Living overseas with poverty on my street showed me suffering I’d never seen in my stateside neighborhoods. Our family went through different traumas while overseas, including our daughter being sexually abused. I’ve had several serious health challenges. My trips to Thailand, Mexico and Ghana this year have given me opportunities to hear horror stories of women and children being used as sexual slaves. Examples from DRC, Darfur, Afghanistan, and Nigeria crowd the news of unimaginable tragedies.

Your list of sufferings may even be longer than mine. Suffering confronts us everywhere—it is something we dread, try to avoid and struggle to explain. When Ravi addresses this topic in chapter 3, he starts with a quick lesson about suffering from a philosophical perspective. Then, he dives into Job—the Biblical Poster Person for suffering.

G.K. Chesterton is quoted in this chapter. What he says is reminiscent of what Peter said to Jesus after many of His followers abandoned Him. “When belief in God becomes difficult, the tendency is to turn away from Him; but in heaven’s name to what? “ Peter said it this way, "Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. We've already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God." (The Message, John 6: 68-69)

How is your faith in God impacted when life is difficult—when suffering makes belief seem impossible? As you read chapter 3, please be honest with yourself about the suffering you’ve experienced or witnessed. What are the real questions suffering has raised for you?

May I give you a head’s up? Ravi’s explanation of God’s work in Job’s life is one of the best I’ve ever heard. I love how Ravi describes how Job’s faith grows from knowing God as Creator and Designer, to Revealer, Comforter, Mediator and Savior, Strengthener and Restorer. Job started his journey focused on himself—his character and purity. By the end of the book, he’d come to know and understand God much better and was now focused on His character.

Please pay extra attention to the conclusion of this chapter where Ravi notes four extremely important and encouraging truths about suffering we’re able to learn from Job. I hope you find them as helpful and insightful as I did.

I look forward to reading your comments on this chapter.

Cries of the Heart: The Cry to Feel My Faith

Last night was a sleepless night for me triggered by an emotional day yesterday. Life felt “too.” Too serious, too overwhelming, with too many prayer requests, too much to do, too many concerns. My heart was focused on problems and challenges, heart aches and people in pain. And, though I prayed and processed my pain, I obviously wasn’t done since part of the night was dedicated to more honest prayer and wrestling with my Heavenly Father.

Knowing how I feel and why I am emotional is important. But, more important—I need to know God’s truth about Himself and me when I’m faced with life out of control. In this chapter, Ravi asks, “How may we blend knowledge of the truth with a proportionate feeling so that we will lead our emotions rather than being guided by them?”

I’ve already read this chapter two times and it is highlighted in multiple places with two brilliant colors. So much of it confronted my emotional lifestyle. Ravi isn’t just dealing with emotions in this chapter—he is teaching about our emotional response to God when we don’t feel His presence, when we don’t feel connected to our faith, when our Christian life isn’t making sense. He says, “And if our feelings regarding our physical well-being are so important to reckon with, how much more important it is that those same feelings be informed when struggling with the nearness or remoteness of God. Feelings on such a matter become life-defining. The imperative is obvious. We must know what is real so that we might base our feelings on what is true."

As you read, notice what Ravi says we need to understand about the emotional baggage we bring into our relationship with God. Do you recognize anything you carried into your relationship with Him?

Notice, too, the languages we should be cultivating to have healthy emotional processes with God. Are you strong in any of those languages—are any of them growth areas for you?Ravi’s conclusion in this chapter probably spoke the strongest to me. How do you respond to his challenge? I’ll be posting my response with you. I look forward to reading what you have to say. Again, I ask you to contribute—our book club will be great if each of us shares our thoughts.

Cries of the Heart: Intro & Chapter One

Do you have a favorite place to sit when you are reading a good book? Are you looking forward to retreating to that spot with our book club choice, Cries of the Heart, by Ravi Zacharias? I don’t think you will be disappointed as you dig into this book—though I have to admit this isn’t a light read. Ravi is a philosopher, and though he writes for the average lay person, his concepts take some deep thinking on his readers’ part. I hope you’ll agree with me when I say mining this book is worth the effort required.

You will need to allow at least two hours to complete our first assignment which is to read the Introduction and Chapter One. I probably took twice that time—I needed soak time to grasp what Ravi was communicating. The subject of Ravi’s first chapter is God—defining who God is.

As I read this book, I can’t help but wonder if it was taken from a series of sermons. The book reads as if it was spoken, not written. In Chapter One, historical, philosophical, and biblical accounts of who God is lend depth to our reading, but also help us realize man’s search for who God is has taken him in many directions, to various conclusions. Ravi uses history, philosophy, sociology and even theology to show us how little we understand God—the weaknesses of man’s approaches to discover who God is. Isn’t this what we struggle with when we try to understand God? I greatly appreciate our author’s honesty and the conclusions he presents.

I wonder, will you agree with Ravi’s conclusions?

That is what I’d like you to blog about this week as we discuss chapter one of this great book. How does Jehoshapat’s prayer help us understand who God is? What do his questions teach us in our search to know God?

I look forward to blogging with you and reading your responses. And, that brings me to this—if you are reading this book with me, please don’t sit in the blog’s shadows without a voice. Your thoughts are important to our discussion and this blog will be as good as each of our contributions. Please write—please comment—please let us hear from you.