Drawing Near To The Brokenhearted

From thin fractures of the heart to the chasms of devastated cities, mature love sees hurt and fear and regret. It sees racism, injustice, violence and abuse. Mature love recognizes lust, greed, deceit, and pride. It sees the lonely and the outcast, the refugee and the bullied. It sees those who mourn and those who feel betrayed. Mature love witnesses disease and pollution. It sees giving up, and giving in. It sees the reasons that we don’t speak. It sees the pain that we try to hide. Mature love recognizes failure and suffering and decay and death. All of it.

The response of mature love to these things? It is not fear or hopelessness.

It is not shame or despair or regret or anger.

It is not indifference.

The response is compassion.

Compassion is disruption deep inside us that moves us to suffer with another. It is a feeling so strong that it compels us to draw near enough to embrace the broken. Scripture uses this kind of language to describe God being close enough to touch us. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.”[1]

Compassion does not take place in abstraction. Sympathetic emojis decorating our text threads do not express the gut-wrenching, bowel-unsettling force of compassion that Jesus demonstrated. When He saw a widow weeping as the body of her only son was carried out through a city gate, he was moved with immense compassion. “He walked over to the coffin and touched it,”[2] coming near enough to touch both the shattered life and the broken heart.

What an incredible honor to draw near, to bear witness, and to share in suffering and tears. Do we think about it this way? We should. In these holy moments, when compassion flows, the love of the Father flows through us to His children. These are the moments of deep communion between Creator and creatures. This humbles us and reminds us to be slow to speak and quick to listen. Our presence and compassion in the midst of suffering ushers in the presence and compassion of Christ.

In these moments we confess, “We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.”[3] Have mercy, Lord, in these situations where we don't have the capacity to understand or fix. Compassion allows us to love in a way that we otherwise cannot. It allows us to enjoy the company of those who seldom enjoy company, to see the forgotten and remind them of their inherent worth, to recognize the anguish that no one else notices, and to be present in places of tears. Compassion flows from our embrace and gives purpose to our noticing of the broken.

When we choose compassion for the broken one, we foster compassion for all. At all times, in all seasons, the posture of our heart towards humanity remains compassionate. We have seen God in a new way, we have seen ourselves in a new way, and now we see others in a new way… with our Father’s eyes of compassion and love.

Author: Zach Elliott

Zach Elliott describes himself as an ordinary man who loves Jesus. Anyone who knows Zach Elliott would describe him as far from ordinary. Zach began his career with Oregon State Police as a Forensic Evidence Technician, then served as a church planter and a pastor before launching V3, a ministry committed to sharing the Gospel and loving the Church. He is a husband, father, speaker, author, and thought leader, engaging the world with a powerful message of hope and restoration in Christ. He has a contagious love of life, finds beauty in the most unlikely places, and loves people with an uncommon depth of respect and honor.

This excerpt is quoted from Zach’s book, Now I See.

[1] Psalm 34:18 NLT

[2] Luke 7:14 NLT

[3] 2 Chronicles 20:12 NLT