S71P1 – What God heals: the heart
Psa. 147:2-3
The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
His experiences taught him to expect life to bring him disappointment. He was too young to understand his parents’ divorce when it happened, and he never really felt at home in either of their blended families. Family stresses and questions regarding his identity made it difficult to focus in school, and he regularly fell behind the other kids. He grew into an adult who did not dream and did not set goals because things never seemed to work out anyway. If he set his heart on anything, he would take the risk of it being broken again. So, he put his heart into nothing in life and lived only a shadow of his potential. His circumstances had conditioned him, and there simply was not room for hope or faith.
Understanding the evil that exists in this world, we know that heartbreak is a common reason why people decide not to follow God. I remember hearing from someone who suffered a great tragedy and could not reconcile that loss with the existence of God. She once had been a person of faith, but that heartbreak shattered her. She could not separate her pain from her faith. Ultimately, she decided that a God who would allow such a tragedy to befall her was not a God she wanted to worship or follow. It is one thing for heartbreak to keep someone from knowing God in the first place. In her case, it actually robbed her of what little faith she had at the time. She did not even want to give God a chance to heal her and closed off her heart from the one who gave it to her.
Just listen to the popular music of any era, and you will see how common the human heartache is. You also will see how badly people are searching for healing. Especially with the social issues prevalent in our society more recently, many are looking for a remedy for their pain. God’s power to heal the heart is nothing short of a miracle. When someone feels like he or she is in the darkest depths and cannot emerge from that place, finding healing is literally unbelievable. The truth is that there is no wound too big for God to heal. The healing of hearts is something we always should pursue in faith not just for ourselves but for the broken people around us. Father, give us faith to trust You to bind up every wound, and remind us of the brokenhearted when we pray.