Monday, May 7, 2018
Psalm 34:18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
BEYOND REPAIR?
My dad could fix anything. At least I thought so when I was growing up. A favorite toy would break. A board game would fall apart. Later on, my car would lose a muffler or need a battery replaced. It would look pretty hopeless to me, but I knew where to go. I would take it to Dad with the question, "Can you fix this, please?" And he would.
Toys, games, and even vehicles are simple to fix compared to broken lives. Where do you turn when feelings are hurt and broken by the words of others? How do you fix the mistakes you've made? What if you've made such a mess of things that there seems to be no possible way out? What if no one seems to care? What if you deserve nothing but punishment?
That is where all of us are by nature. The good we ought to do, we don't do. The evil we know we shouldn't do, we do anyway. James warns: "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10). What we have broken we cannot possibly fix. It doesn't matter how sorry we are, how much we would like to undo things, or how hard we might try to make up for our wrongs. We can't fix them.
But then our loving heavenly Father invites us to come to Him. "As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him" (Psalm 103:13). "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18).
So today take whatever is broken to the One who can fix all things. Take your guilt to Him in repentance and pray with the tax collector, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Then see how He has fixed the greatest of all problems through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.
