Counsellor, Comforter, Keeper

Three truths about God to comfort the broken-hearted

How do you cope when your heart is broken; when the trials and sorrows of life continue to crush a spirit already shattered?

How do you carry on when you’ve lost all your energy and will to do so?

How do you plan for the future when the present seems only to be getting bleaker and more hopeless?

How do you persevere steadfastly when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel?

When the ‘how’ seems impossible, as if the present trial is insurmountable, as children of God we have one never-failing recourse: we must lift our eyes and bring our burdens to Christ.

God Is Our Trustworthy Counsellor

He is our counsellor - He promises to lead us in the way everlasting, to give us wisdom, to make our paths straight, and to reveal his will for our lives.

In Scripture alone, we find the truths we so desperately need to rely on for strength in our weakest moments.

He is the “Wonderful Counsellor” (Isaiah 9:6) and His word is “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Psalm 119:105)

Our souls are safe in His steadfast and omniscient keeping, as the Psalmist writes: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24)

His Word answers every question by guiding our thoughts, responses, and convictions about how we should biblically tackle each challenge or decision we face.

Yes, Scripture may not say ‘You should take this job’ or ‘You should live here’ or ‘You should say this response’.

God’s word doesn’t spell out each of our decisions for us, but He does give us clear guidance on what our hearts’ position should be and how we should react and respond to the trials and challenges that face us in life.

As the Scriptures so comfortingly reiterates, when we make “[His] testimonies [our] delight” and “[our] counsellors” (Psalm 119:24), Christ is the one who promises to “instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” (Psalm 32:8)

God Is Our Compassionate Comforter

Jesus knew what it was to suffer, to grieve, and to feel the weight of a broken world.

No one understands the pain of grief, separation, and rejection more than Christ. And it is this God, this “Man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3) and “God of all comfort” (2 Cor 1:3) who promises to comfort us in our sorrows.

Paul reassuringly reminds his readers of God’s enduring comfort in our afflictions and the greater purpose that He is always working in each season of our lives: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)

God is the Father of all mercies, the God of all comfort, and He will never leave us alone and abandoned in our struggles.

He is our greatest comforter and our solace in the storms of life.

Each heartbreak, difficult season, and bitter disappointment tenderises our hearts and enables us to feel more keenly the pain of others. This shared pain allows us to connect with our fellow sufferers in a more meaningful way than we ever could have without the trials.

We appreciate their struggles because we too have been bruised and battered by the fierce giants they now face.

Our hearts have been overwhelmed by the same waves of grief, our shoulders have weakened under the same burdens of sin and disappointment, and our fears - the same ones they face - have all too often left us as incapacitated and broken-spirited as they now feel.

When we have experienced Christ’s comforting presence in “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4), we can hold the hands of those overwhelmed by grief and the darkness of this world, and lift their eyes to the Christ who saved us also.

We can sympathise more fully with those whose hearts have been broken in the same ways as ours, whose bruised faith stood against the same onslaughts, and whose wounded souls testify to the same pain and heartbreak we inevitably experience as fallen humans in a sin-stricken world.

Suffering equips us to have compassion on others, just as Christ has had immeasurable compassion on us.

And yet, this increasing capacity for empathy is not the only blessing God works in the midst of suffering.

God Is Our Sovereign Keeper

In our brokenness, we are enabled to give a surer testimony to the grace and power of Christ that has brought us safely to the other side.

He has kept us this far, and each day His faithfulness proves that He will continue to keep us until He has brought us to the shores of an eternity secure with Him.

Our brokenness stands testimony to His power to heal, to restore, and “to save to the uttermost” (Hebrews 7:25).

God will keep us till the end. He numbers every hair on our heads, He plans every day, He knows everything that will happen, and He will never allow us to be lost.

He will bring our salvation and glorification to fruition and finish the good work He has started in us. As our eternal keeper, we can rest assured that “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

If you are His, you shall never be lost: “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." (John 10:28-30)

He helps us to persevere amidst the heartbreak and gives us the strength and power to continue by faith.

In Christ, we are beautifully broken. He takes our weaknesses, failings, and scars, and in each season He crafts a glorious story of redemption.

He makes the broken beautiful, and although we can only see this in part here on earth, we will one day see the full panorama of restoration when we are with Him face to face in heaven.

On that day He will “wipe every tear from [our] eyes” (Revelation 21:4), and then “we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

Look to Christ

In Christ, we have an indestructible haven of refuge and a Saviour who will never turn away from our desperate pleas for help.

Look to Him in everything; in the rain, in the turmoil, in the conflict, in the nights of sorrow, and the days of anxiety.

Look to Christ, because only He can carry us through the trials of life and use even the worst situations to sanctify us and make us fit for a glorious eternity with Him.

Look to Christ.

He is our Counsellor, our Comforter, and our Keeper.

Our present, our past, and our future - our fears, our failings, and our future - are all safe in His sovereign keeping.