George Herbert was one of the great poets of the English language. Born in the early 1600s, he received an elite education at Cambridge and could have taken a powerful government position in England. Instead, he chose a minor office in the church, serving as a local country pastor. He cared deeply for those most in need and was much beloved by his parishioners. Out of that small, hidden life came some of the most beautiful poetry ever written.

His poem The Altar draws on scripture — including God's command to Moses to build an altar using uncut stones, and the words of Psalm 51, where the broken human heart itself becomes an offering to God. I share it with you today:

A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,

Made of a heart, and cemented with tears.

Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;

No workman's tool hath touched the same.

A heart alone

Is such a stone,

As nothing but

Thy power doth cut.

Wherefore each part

Of my hard heart

Meets in this frame,

To praise thy name:

That, if I chance to hold my peace,

These stones to praise thee may not cease.

Oh let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mind,

And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

The image at the heart of this poem is worth sitting with: a broken altar. Not a grand one, hewn and polished. An altar made of a broken heart, cemented with tears. Herbert suggests that this is precisely what God is looking for — not our finest, most impressive offerings, but the honest, unvarnished truth of who we are.

What might it look like today to offer God exactly that?

Prayer: Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. Loving God, we give you our hearts, we give you our hands, we give you our very lives again this day. Through Jesus Christ. Amen.

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