Psalm 147:3 – Pain Part 4 – Restoration

   "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

Psalm 147:3 (ESV)


Preface

This is part of a series of posts on the nature of emotional pain, what it can reveal about our hearts and minds, and the purpose it has in our walk with Christ. If you want the full context, start from the beginning.


Restoration

It's taken me a while to finish up with this one, as you can tell. That's partly because I've been working on some other drafts that just don't look the way I want them to yet. But it's mainly because I've been struggling to find a way to conclude this in a way that feels satisfying, but genuine. I think what I'm struggling with is that I want to end it in a really positive light, but if I only did that, I think I'd be minimizing how impactful emotional wounds can be in our lives.

In Jeremiah 30, the Lord promises to Jeremiah that He will restore Jerusalem, as it's in the process of being destroyed by the Babylonians. The same issue that Habakkuk struggled with, which I talked about it in a different post. Long story short, these prophets are mourning the loss of their home, and a kingdom that had deep spiritual roots. They're understandably confused as to why God's letting it happen, and they're in great pain from their incredible loss. God promises them that He will restore Jerusalem, and heal their wounds. It's unlikely that any of those prophets had lived long enough to see that restoration take place, but I have no doubt that their wounds were, in fact, healed.

Psalm 147 is thought to be a celebration Psalm, composed after Jerusalem had been restored. It took so long, but God had kept His promise. He healed the brokenhearted, even if they never got to see the full restoration themselves of what they had lost.

That must have been incredibly difficult for them. I wondered how much their hope suffered as they lived their lives amidst of the destruction of something that God had blessed them with for so long – but look at their faith. See Habakkuk's praise at the tail end of his book. Read Jeremiah 10, and see how God's glorified. Look at the confidence that He'd fulfill this same promise at the end of Zephaniah. At this point, all these men knew was loss. Their wounds were fresh, and undoubtedly painful. If God communicated to me like He did to the prophets, I wonder how different my faith would really look.

I think something we can see from every perspective of just that one promise is that part of restoration comes with the promise itself, before we even see His will it carried out. Because the promise to us isn't that He'll take our pain away, but that He has a plan for us to prosper (Jer 29:11). We still have to feel every bit of our pain, but we know that it's meant for something.

My pain hurts. What do we expect? "That is what the word means . . . To prove it palatable is beyond my design. (Lewis, The Problem of Pain)." My pain has a purpose. So does yours. We know that now – what does it take to believe it?

the intolerable compliment.

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