“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.” – Psalm 34:18
“One does not live on bread alone, but
on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” – Matthew 4:4
There is
a live-giving connection between today’s Responsorial Psalm and the Verse
before the Gospel. The reality that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted can
be a confusing one. One might think, “Well, God, its great that you are here
with me, but why am I here? I don’t want to be brokenhearted.” Feeling any kind
of brokenheartedness, sorrow, heartache, confusion, pain, or anguish is simply not fun. It
is exhausting, confusing, paralyzing, and truly difficult. Yet, the Lord is close to the
brokenhearted. C.S. Lewis famously wrote: “God whispers to us in our pleasures,
speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse
a deaf world.”[1]
Since
God is close to us when we are brokenhearted, we can be confident that Lewis is
right: pain can awaken us to a deeper relationship with God. Scripture
definitively confirms this. The key word is discipline. In the Letter to the
Hebrews, Paul exhorts us: “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his
children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it
produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” [2]
In one sense, this experience of discipline is
God’s means of training us to rely on Him. “One does not
live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”
When your heart is broken, where do you turn? When you are confused, what do
you believe in? When you are driven to tears, where do you find comfort? People
can answer these questions in many, many ways; there are countless options to
choose from. However, the answer for God’s people is God Himself. Through discipline,
God draws us to Himself to teach us that He is faithful, that His love never
fails, and, ultimately, to sanctify us. And, as Paul writes, those who have been trained by discipline will produce a harvest of righteousness and peace. God trains us to live not merely physically by bread, but spiritually by His word. During difficult times, God forces us to learn His precious promises and, better yet, He fulfills His promises through us - He proves His faithfulness.
If pain and sorrow become
your reality, plant yourself in God's word, and actively trust that: “The LORD is close to the
brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves. Many are the
troubles of the just man, but out of them all
the LORD delivers him.” [3]
-
Anonymous
[2] Hebrews 12:7,11
[3] Psalm 34:18-19
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