A friend’s father loses his battle with cancer. News of an impending divorce. The unexpected death of a young man. Abusive words spoken and then rationalized as biblical. One after another, over the span of a week.
Broken.
We live in a broken world.
I desperately don’t want it to be. I want to have a world where fathers don’t die so young, and people keep loving one another, and children stay with us and people bless and don’t curse. I want families intact and relationships strong. I want safe, trusted, constant, faithful.
But we live in a broken world.
So I take this reality to God and say, “What do I do? How do I pray? How do I live in this?”
And He reminds me that he promises to be close to the brokenhearted and to heal them and bind them up. He tells me that He weeps with us and endures with us and walks the hard roads with us, that His compassion is endless and overflowing and His mercy starts all over again every morning. He tells me to trust in this.
So I say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” Come into our brokenness. Come and be all that you promised to be so we have a solid place to stand in it.
We live in brokenness but we are not without hope.
My hope is not that the world will stop being broken, but that we will meet the lover of broken hearts in the midst of it. We will experience Him healing and binding us, bringing beauty from ashes, redeeming the darkness. We will cling to the hope that one day there will be no more brokenness, and every tear will be wiped away. All will be right.
So we keep walking through the brokenness, not in defeat but in hope. Hope in the one who is close to the brokenhearted.
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” Psalm 43:5
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James 1 — the entire chapter is a lesson in how the trials of life (because we live in a fallen world) are used by God to burnish the Spiritual gifts we have, to remove the dross from our lives and to bring forth new Spiritual gifts. God does not want us to suffer, but since we must, He makes sure that nothing goes to waste — everything can be put to use for our Spiritual growth and His glory. God never wanted us to experience death but since we must, He hides blessings in that event for the comfort and peace of those left behind. “Blessed in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His saints.” Never doubt it. I have an entire article on this topic — if anyone would like to have a copy, contact me at dacstevenson@aol.com and I will forward it to you. Peace and blessings to all. -d