Sustained by the King

Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it; you are not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God.
Psalm 51:1517 CSB

Jesus, more than anyone, has walked in the anguish of being rejected by the one He loves. In His crucifixion, the most tortured moment of eternity, even the Father had to turn away from Him. He spent His last night on Earth, in all His divine omniscience knowing every excruciating detail to come on the cross, weeping alone. In the Garden of Gethsemane, His heart was overwhelmed by such anguish that He wept tears of blood. His eyes weren’t simply swollen with bloodshot tears, they overran with divine agony. With every vile and repulsive act of sin draped over His broken body, suffocating in unimaginable torment, He died alone. In humbling Himself to us as a man, He cloaked Himself in our flesh and took on our burdens. The beginning of His heartbreak, Eden, drove Him to redeem and reclaim us in the depths of His love at whatever cost.

He desires us with all His heart, and we abandon and betray Him in our sin daily. Anyone beaten and abused by love to this degree would give up, ending their suffering in resignation or death. Yet Christ, in His omnipotence and perfection, continues to love us steadfastly in every moment. He has no self-preservation, His love is not portioned out based on our previous actions or good behavior. He loves without any shield or boundaries, His heart is ever-vulnerable to the whip of rejection.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 4:14-16 NIV

His deep empathy (hard-won by lived experience) and compassion (perfected in divinity) lead Him to walk beside the heavy-hearted. When you are exhausted by grief, longing, or disappointment, he crooks your elbow over His shoulder and wraps His arm around your waist, bearing your sagging body through every weary step. When you suffer from the consequences of sin (your’s or someone else’s), He petitions for us as an advocate and intercessor to the Father, whose heart abounds in mercy for us. When you are blindsided by remnants of trauma or snarls of codependence, He holds space for all your indignation and fury.

Whether your heart has been broken, ripped in two, or beaten down by endless hopelessness, know that You have a Lord who feels your pain even deeper than you do. He walks with You through every disappointment, every crushing realization, and every frustration; completely unshielded by pride or delusion. He feels the full weight of our human emotions even more deeply than we do, and He chooses to step into the fire again and again. His heart burns for us, and He jumps at the chance to suffer alongside us. Your pain may last through the night, but I pray that the presence of our ever-perfect Jesus brings you joy in the morning.

Whatever is crumbling all around you in your life, wherever you feel stuck, this remains, un-deflectable: his heart for you, the real you, is gentle and lowly. So go to him. That place in your life where you feel most defeated, he is there; he lives there, right there, and his heart for you, not on the other side of it but in that darkness, is gentle and lowly. Your anguish is his home. Go to him. “If you knew his heart, you would.”

– Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly

Hallelujah forever to our sweet and perfect Savior. His love is unending and His mercies are new every morning.