Technology is great – when it works. Have you ever noticed how often it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to? It’s finally your turn at the DMV counter, and the clerk’s computer freezes. You’re in a hurry to find someone’s number, and the battery dies on your phone. Machines are wonderful tools because they can perform an action over and over with great reliability, but they aren’t infallible. They’re subject to wear and tear. Their gears get out of alignment. Their connections get loose.
I think sometimes we expect to function like machines. We want to be able to put our mind and feelings on a certain setting and then always respond in that way. For example I might decide, I will be patient with my children, and then expect that in every trying circumstance I will respond with patience. But we’re not infallible. We’re quickly subject to inaccuracy, error, and system failure. And when we don’t respond the way we “should”, we get frustrated, fed up, and disappointed.
Sometimes I need a reboot. And sometimes I need a complete overhaul. But when it comes down to it, my heart is fundamentally broken. It doesn’t work right. It has good intentions but it shorts out an awful lot. I want to love others with the stunningly beautiful love that God called me to, that He has extended to me, but I lack the strength, the consistency, the endurance to do it without shortcoming or error. I can’t. I’ve always needed God to enable me.
The enemy wants us to believe that we cannot be fixed. But God wants us to know that we’re in need of repair. He wants us to recognize that our hearts are broken, they don’t work right, and need to be remade. When we do, He says if we bring our hearts to Him He “will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart” (Ezekiel 36:26).
God isn’t frustrated by our performance and He doesn’t get fed up with us because He didn’t make us to be machines, but children. His love for us is both everlasting and unfailing (Jeremiah 31:3) and it has absolutely nothing to do with our performance. It is based solely, 100% on His choice to love us no matter how badly we mess up or how broken we are.
God has no desire to leave us “out of order.” In His love He realigns our hearts to His. He resets and strengthens our connection to Him. However long it takes, whatever it takes, He works steadily until we are restored to full working condition, made “mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4).