Tear Apart your Heart: A Lenten Reflection

Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil.

Joel 2:13

We no longer practice the repentant act of tearing apart our clothing in order to mourn, grieve and plea before God. At the beginning of Lent, which is coming to a culmination as we prepare for Holy Week, I was struck by the words in Joel—this idea of rending my heart. 

Rending quite literally means; ripping apart, tearing up, brokenness. In the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, the physical tearing of one’s clothing represented an outwardly emotional expression of loss, repentance, grief and shame before God. The meaning reflected the hurt in one’s own heart after losing a relationship. Often times, and specifically in the book of Joel, the lost relationship was Israel’s with their Lord. 

The Lenten season is not merely a time of fasting for forty days until Easter. Fasting plays only a part in the larger process toward rending our hearts in preparation for Easter, which is similar to how Christ prepared to rend himself upon the cross. As I reflected on what it means to rend my heart, I struggled. Who wants to admit all the ways in which we’ve broken our relationship with God? Who wants to air out dirty laundry and beg for forgiveness? 

Thankfully God’s brokenness on the cross became the final rending that would end the need for groveling before God for forgiveness and repentance. His grace, mercy, and love for us ended all need for offerings and pity, but it doesn’t excuse us from rending our hearts before him daily to express our devotion, mold-ability and willingness to be poured over in abundant love. By rending our hearts to God, we are taking a bold stance of vulnerability before God to do as He wills in our lives, to be shown our weaknesses so that he can be made strong, to be changed to live more like Christ, and to find freedom from our wayward ways. To quite literally be ripped apart so that we may be made wholy healed, alive, and new.

Rending our hearts during Lent doesn’t mean we need to spend forty days groveling and feeling guilty over our sins, it means we have the joy of drawing near to God as Jesus did in prayer, fasting, service, and being. Drawing near to God will be the rending of our heart because he will remove the old rot and replace it with spiritual renewal and growth to better serve according to his will, not ours. Consider the rending of your heart during Lent as a preparation season for what is to come, for what he has in store for your life. 

We are nearing the end of Lent. Perhaps you didn’t even realize we were in the Lenten season, or maybe you’ve never spent time thinking about the purpose of Lent. This Sunday is Palm Sunday and before that day, I would like you to consider how you might rend your heart to God in this final week. Lent is a remembrance, a time of penitence and repentance—a time to renew your fervor for God.

Joel urged the Israelites to rend their hearts and not their clothes because God desired them to return to him with their hearts. It’s easy to give time, money, and service to God, but ultimately he wants our heart’s devotion. 

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LENTEN REFLECTION

1. Read Joel 2:12-17. Consider what God is asking for in this passage. Could he be asking something similar of you?
2. What areas of your heart need to be ripped apart? Is there any sin that continues to take precedence over God’s place in your heart—if so, take time to confess and give it to God.
3. Is there a lie in your heart keeping you from living boldly for God or yourself? Write it down and tear it up. Ask God to heal you from believing that lie. 
4. Christ’s heart was rent on the cross for all people in a final act of repentance that is freely offered to anyone willing to embrace it. Take time to reflect on how God viewed his son’s sacrifice, how Christ felt being that sacrifice, and finally how you feel receiving the grace born out of that sacrifice. Spend time giving thanks and praise.
5. With a heart rent to God, take time to listen to his word and pray over what he might be preparing for you; perhaps a type of service, a relationship, giving, or healing. 

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