...heart, be broken

Let your heart be tender and your vision clear ---

see the world as God sees, serve Him far and near:

Let your heart be broken by another’s pain,

Share your rich resources --- give and give again.

---Bryan Jeffery Leech, 1975

I’ve heard it…have you? Someone who has dedicated his or her life to serving “the least of these” is described as a “bleeding heart”. The implication is that if you are giving to others, serving others, you are being taken advantage of. And perhaps that is sometimes true. If you are going to pour out your life for others, you will be used from time to time. Perhaps Jesus was.

In this verse from the hymn, we are called to two complementary characteristics to guide our actions. We are to cultivate both tender hearts and clear vision. We are to serve, act, share, and give, all guided by hearts that feel the pain of those in distress and vision that clearly sees the source of that pain. With heart and eye, we seek to salve wounds and seek solutions. With heart and eye, we serve God in a way that the practical world may not ever understand.

And that’s OK.