The God of the Bible is the God also of the broken-hearted. “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.” Psalm 34:18. “He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3. The world cares little for the broken hearts. Indeed, people oftentimes break hearts by their cruelty, their falseness, their injustice, their coldness, and then move on as heedlessly as if they had trodden only on a worm. But God cares. Broken-heartedness attracts him. The plaint (groan) of grief on earth—draws him down from heaven.
Physicians in their rounds do not stop at the homes of the well—but of the sick. Surgeons on the field of battle do not pay attention to the unhurt, the unwounded; they bend over those who have been torn by shot or shell, or pierced by sword or saber. So it is with God in his movements through this world; it is not to the whole and the well—but to the wounded and stricken, that he comes with sweetest tenderness. Jesus said of his mission: “He has sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted.” Isaiah 61:1
We look upon trouble as misfortune. We say the life is being destroyed, which is passing through adversity. But the truth which we find in the Bible, does not so represent suffering. God is a repairer and restorer of the hurt and ruined life. He takes the reed which is bruised—and by his gentle skill makes it whole again, until it grows into fairest beauty. When a branch of a tree is injured, the whole tree begins at once to send of its sap to the wounded part to restore it. When a violet is crushed by a passing foot, air and sun and cloud and dew all at once begin their ministry of healing, giving of their life to bind up the wound of the little flower. So Heaven does with human hearts when they are wounded. The love, pity, and grace of God minister sweet blessing of comfort and healing, to restore that which is broken.
Much of the most beautiful life in this world, comes out of sorrow. As “fair flowers bloom upon rough stalks,” so many of the fairest flowers of human life grow upon the rough stalks of suffering. We see that those who in heaven wear the whitest robes, and sing the loudest songs of victory, are they who have come out of great tribulation. Heaven’s highest places are filling, not from earth’s homes of glad festivity and tearless joy—but from its chambers of pain; its valleys of struggle where the battle is hard; and its scenes of sorrow, where pale cheeks are wet with tears, and where hearts are broken. The God of the Bible—is the God of the bowed down, whom he lifts up into his strength. Earth’s failures are not failures—if God is in them.–By J.R. Miller, 1892
