What Heals a Broken Heart

I tugged my son’s hand as we shuffled slowly toward his bedroom. He never wants to nap but always needs one. In true three-year-old fashion, he stamped his foot, pulled his hand away, crossed his arms over his chest and declared: “I not want to nap!”
I responded with my regular mother lecture: “You need to obey all the way, right away, with a happy heart.” I hid a smile when he blurted out, “I can’t! My heart is broken!”

Though I laughed when I recounted the conversation to my husband later, the truth of my son’s statement cannot be argued. His heart is broken. Dead actually, until the Lord saves him.

The condition of the broken heart is universal. It’s global. It’s personal.  And there is only one cure.

In Psalm 107, the psalmist walks us through four stories of redemption of the tribe of Judah after their period of exile.  The psalm opens with a call for the redeemed to proclaim how the Lord has loved them with His steadfast love, and then works through some specific ways He has faithfully loved them. Each of the four scenarios occurred as result of the exile, which was God’s judgment of His people for their many years of rebellion. Each group of people called out to the Lord in the midst of great suffering, and God stepped in to alleviate their grief with deliverance.

First, we read of those who wandered in desert places with no place to call home (v. 4-9). They cried out to God, and He led them to a city to dwell in. Second are those who were wasting away in the darkness of prison and hard labor (v.10-16). They cried out to God, and He delivered them. Third is the group who I most identify with, and these are the ones who were suffering because of their own stupid foolishness (v.17-22). Mercifully, God responded to their cry for help and healed them with His Word. The fourth and final group are those who got caught at sea during a storm (v.23-32). They cried to the Lord who stilled the sea before bringing them to the harbor they longed for.

The psalmist then moves through a list of reversals, noting the way God works in paradoxical ways (v.33-42). The whole psalm is a paradox, honestly, for the deliverance God gives to His people comes in spite of the fact that they were stuck in their unbearable circumstances because of their own rebellion and foolishness in the first place.

This is where God’s steadfast love shines brightly: He keeps His promises though His people do not. In preserving the people of these four stories, He was preserving the line of Judah. He was keeping His promise to Abraham to bless the world through him, and He was keeping His promise to David to send a king that would forever reign on the throne. Jesus is the fulfillment of those promises, and in delivering these people who cried out with broken hearts, He was preparing the way to heal us of our own broken hearts. The psalmist says He “satisfies the longing soul,” and He “sent out His word and healed them” (Ps. 107:9, 20). God really did heal and satisfy them, but that’s not all He does. He always goes deeper, as verses 33-42 illustrate. What the people needed more than physical health or deliverance was healing for their broken, sinful, foolish hearts. Their need is our need. And because He is full of steadfast, faithful love, God responds to the cry of a broken heart and heals us with His Word.

This is where God’s steadfast love shines brightly: He keeps His promises though His people do not. Share on X

When the Lord opened my eyes to my sinful state and saved me, He healed my broken heart with His Word. He satisfied my longing soul with the food of His table, the Bread of Life, the Living Water. He sent healing through the Word, Jesus, and rescued me from the mess I had made with my sin and rebellion. Though my undoing was of my own doing, He healed all that was broken and made me new. Jesus’ death at the cross covered all my rebellion, my foolishness, my wandering, my despair. God sent the Word to heal me of my sin sickness. And He is healing me still.

The final verse of Psalm 107 is a call for wisdom, which is fitting in light of the plights of God’s people prior to their deliverance. Wisdom is found in considering the steadfast love of the Lord. We may bear consequences for our sin, but our hearts can still be mended when we believe that Jesus paid the ultimate price for our sins at the cross. If you want to extricate yourself from your past foolish living, if you wonder how God could deliver someone who has sinned so much, if you despair of the greatness of your sins, follow the path of wisdom by fixing your gaze on the Lord’s faithful love. He heals and He satisfies.

 

 

 

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash