My nephew was born with a hole in his heart. No matter how hard his little infant heart worked it just couldn’t do what it was supposed to. It was defective. It could have worked tirelessly, but eventually it would have stopped. By God’s grace, however, it was identified and addressed by the doctors before he left the hospital. Now he is a happy and very healthy young man in his twenties.
You know something about being born with a defective heart. You have one too…figuratively. It comes with the territory when you are born from a long line of sinners. God states that truth clearly in the Bible, but my guess is you’ve sensed it in your life as well. It’s in the emptiness you feel, the loneliness you avoid, the guilt you carry, and the anxiety that lingers. People work tirelessly to fix the defect or fill the hole with friends and family, drugs and alcohol, or success and shopping, but the hole never gets filled. The defect remains and their heart never gets the rest it craves.
What’s the answer? It was 4 weeks in the hospital and 2 surgeries that fixed my nephews heart, but it is 33 years and 3 nails that will fix yours. Jesus perfect life as your substitute and his innocent death in your place have made things right again. All the emptiness and loneliness, the guilt and anxiety, it all melts away when the Holy Spirit convinces you that Jesus has made you whole and right with God.
Long ago a theologian named Augustine said, “Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they rest in you.”
There is only one fix for these defective, restless hearts of ours. His name is Jesus.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. – Matthew 11:28
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