Better than a Hallelujah

Bek shared this song with me the other day and I have been unable to get it out of my mind since. It's called Better Than a Hallelujah by Amy Grant. The chorus goes like this:

We just 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

I find these words very comforting. I wish that I could stay at a place where the only feeling, the only words that come out of my mouth are full of joy, buts that's not the way life works. I am so thankful that God thinks my tears are just as beautiful as my songs.

My most recent quiet times have been spent studying the life of David. As I read through the events that took place in his life I began to wonder why it is that this man is considered a man after God's own heart. If you have ever read the story of David's life it is a messed up story. David was an adulterer, a murder, and failed miserably as a parent. He often followed his flesh and over and over again failed to be the leader he should of been for the nation of Israel. He constantly made the choice to ignore God, yet God Himself says that this is a man after His own heart. Why? How could God describe a man like this as a man after His own heart? His life sure doesn't resemble the picture I have in my mind of a man after God's heart.

I think that the answer is in the above song. If you read through the Psalms of David you will see a man who was a sinner, who messed up time and time again. He never claims to be better than anyone, never describes himself as perfect, never even claims that he is a worthy example of a follower of God. The picture that David paints of himself in the Psalm's is one of humility, and repentance. There is a honest plea to God for salvation. He constantly admits his failures and we see in him a true repentance of his sins.

Sure God loves to hear us worship Him and joyfully sing praises to His name but I think that it pleases Him just as much to catch our tears. After all broken hearts often make us easier to mold. It is when we reach that breaking point, the point where we cannot move without His hand on us that we allow God to do His greatest work in us. God does His greatest work in us when we are at the end of ourselves. It is this process of emptying ourself that God desires the most, and this process is often full of tears and broken hearts.