Better Than a Hallelujah!

Romans 5:8 - But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

There's a beautiful song that is popular by Amy Grant called Better Than a Hallelujah. I have to admit I didn't understand it at first. Not until recently.

God loves a lullaby

In a mother's tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.
God loves the drunkard's cry,
The soldier's plea not to let him die
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah.

The woman holding on for life,
The dying man giving up the fight
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes
The tears of shame for what's been done,
The silence when the words won't come
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes.

We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah
Better than a church bell ringing,
Better than a choir singing out, singing out...

All I heard was the negativity in the verses and wondered how anyone could rejoice in a drunkard's cry, dying men, tears of shame, soldiers pleading for their lives, breaking hearts. Then I dawned on me. Something I've known all along...God rejoices when we come to a place in our lives where we cannot go on any further. When we have come to a place where the only place to go is to God, to look up and to accept His love unconditionally. "The honest cries of breaking hearts." How beautiful they are to Him.

I believe God grieves because He sees those who do not look to Him or reject Him. He grieves when He sees people living lives that were not part of His plan for them. He grieves as the hurt suffer because of the things they do to themselves through alcohol, drugs, pornography, prostitution, crime, murder, abortion. There is something in each of us we hang on to that should be let go of. A hurt of some sort that has burdened us and allowed us to become what we are, apart from the Lord.

God does not need for us to be beautiful and perfect and all fixed up for Him to receive us. He calls us to come as we are. He wants to do the work because He knows best what needs to be done. The angels in heaven rejoice for each one who makes this decision. Jesus came to heal us of all these things if we truly desire it. 

Luke 4:16-21 is a reading by Jesus of a word from Isaiah 61:1-3:

"The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed..."

If there is something you wish to let go of, give it to Jesus. It doesn't matter where you are in life, where you came from or what you've done. All that matters is what He is able to do in and through you. Let the pain you may be carrying be "better than a hallelujah" to God. He uses the drunkards, the sick, the shamed. Their cries to Him, are better than any other form of worship we can offer. When we've been cleaned up, people notice when lives have turned around. It's not about what we can do, but what God can do in us.

1Corinthians 1:27-29 - God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.