The diamond-studded heart

Every now and again I come across a book in which the author’s introduction is so compact and so comprehensive that I almost feel I needn’t read further. I’ve got the message. I have enough inspiration to meet my spiritual needs for the next week or two.

       That was the case with Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Crossway, 2020).

Upfront, Ortlund announces that his book is written for the discouraged, the frustrated, the weary, the disenchanted, the cynical, the empty. It’s for those running on fumes. Those whose Christian lives seem to be constantly running up a descending escalator. Those who find themselves thinking: “How could I mess up that bad—again?”

Ortlund says his book is for those with an increasing suspicion that God’s patience with them is wearing thin. It’s for those who know God loves them but suspect they might have disappointed Him. 

       It’s for those who wonder if they have shipwrecked their lives beyond what can be repaired. Who are convinced they’ve permanently diminished their usefulness to God.

Written, in other words, says Ortlund, for normal Christians—for sinners and sufferers. Which leads to the obvious question: How does Jesus feel about them?

And this is precisely what—to his credit—Ortlund sets out to do: simply discuss what the Bible says about the heart of Jesus and consider, from several different angles, the glorious impact of His diamond-studded heart on our up-and-down lives.

No easy task, we soon realize. After all, it’s one thing to describe what, say, your husband or wife enjoys on TV or says and does and looks like. It’s something else—something deeper and more challenging—to describe his or her heart.

But back to the main text and some of those different angles covered in the book. They include God’s happiness; His calm, soothing, restrained, way of dealing with us; His tender friendship; His overflowing mercy. His open heart. Welcoming. Accommodating. Understanding. Willing.

Repeatedly, we are assured that our failures can never outstrip God’s grace which is so comfortingly expressed in the life of Christ Jesus. Our moments of feeling utterly  overwhelmed by life are where God’s heart lives.

No wonder Ortlund concludes with a line that neatly embraces the spirit of the book as a whole: “If Jesus hosted His own personal website, the most prominent words in the About Me dropdown would read: ‘Gentle and Lowly in Heart’”(Matt. 11:29).

         And wouldn’t a commitment to those Christly qualities guarantee our usefulness to God and help transform the world!