Heartbreak House

Why do so many good people go bad? Why do some children turn against their parents? What a heartbreaking experience to have a child turn to drugs, or alcohol, or end up in jail. Why? Why does it happen?

Perhaps the best answer we can give to parental heart-break is that it happens to God too. We who are His children disappoint and hurt Him. We cause Him great pain. But this is what the Gospel is all about…God’s amazing love for foolish, sinful children.

In John 14, we find the words of Jesus telling about a Heavenly Father, who has a marvelous house with many rooms. In this beautiful passage, often used as funeral scripture, he explains that he will go on ahead to prepare a place for us.

But the spiritual home that we call “Heaven” must be the original “Heartbreak House”, because so many of its rooms are empty! God has an occupancy problem. He has a room for everyone, but rooms are empty because they are not claimed.

It is because God loves us, that He has given us the freedom to say “Yes” or “No” to Him and to His spiritual laws. We are not puppets on a string. We are not electronic machinery, powered by a divine battery, and controlled by a super divine computer. We are the prodigal sons, who can freely take God’s marvelous gifts and squander them, until finally the hell on earth of our own sins causes us to say, “Even the servants in my father’s house are better off than I.”

With this mood of desperation, or because of good common sense reasoning, some of God’s children decide to take a second look and say, “I will return.”

How wonderful that “Heartbreak House” can become “Rejoicing House”. For when even one sinner comes to his senses, we are told that literally “all the angels in heaven rejoice.”

Through the centuries there have been too many un-occupied rooms in God’s great mansion. This is the burden of God’s heart. But you and I can change God’s sorrow into rejoicing, when we come to our senses. We each have a claim on that Heavenly real estate. What a shame that so many just ignore it.