Have you ever had your heart broken? Maybe the other person cheated. Maybe the other person terminated the relationship. Maybe they moved away. Maybe they lied. There are loads of reasons for a broken heart when you are in love.
In today’s post, we’re going to learn that we all need our hearts broken. But not romantically.
Let me explain. What we do we do when we don’t live in line with God’s heart? What do we do when we fail, and sin? This week on the blog, we’re talking about Israel’s great King David as a man after God’s own heart. David was no stranger to sin. One of his most powerful psalms is about his sin. Look at Psalm 51’s subtitle: “When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.”
This is David’s journal entry after he got confronted for adultery, lying, murder. In verses 1–9, David describes how a man after God’s own heart wrestles with the reality of his sin. David is begging for forgiveness and mercy. But in those verses, he doesn’t mention his heart. He goes their next in verses 10-12,
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
And then again in verses 16 and 17,
“You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
When you have a dirty heart, if you want a clean heart, you first need a broken heart. David is not talking about a romantic broken heart. David broke his own heart when he sinned, and was confronted with the reality, the pain, the consequence, of his sin. He feels deep pain because of his sinful actions.
When we sin, a broken heart is the right response because it shows that we are aware of what we did and how it affected others. In my book I talk about the Korean concept of han, which I learned from Andrew Park’s book, The Wounded Heart of God. It is very hard to translate into English, because it is a very emotional anguished word. Similar to a broken heart. But han brings with it an awareness of how our sin affects others. Our sin is almost never something that only affects us. We need han or a broken heart that is clearly aware of the pain that we have caused.
Then David mentions a contrite heart. In the language David wrote in, Hebrew, this word is actually “crushed”. In other words, he is not just broken. What is broken can be fixed. David is crushed. It is a deeper emotion, much deeper. A heart after God’s heart is seriously affected by its own sin.
Paul refers to this in 2 Corinthians 7. He had written a confrontational letter about sin in that Corinthian church family which they had not dealt with. Paul confronts them in order to get to their heart.
Here’s what he writes in 2 Corinthians 7, verses 8–11,
“Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.”
They were in the wrong, but his letter crushed them, got them to what he calls godly sorrow that wants to repent and make things right. That is just what they did. They made it right, and thus in the end became innocent anew. Same with David. He cries out to God to restore him, and God does so.
To have that kind of renewed heart relationship with God, consider what David writes in Psalm 139:23, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” Invite God to search your heart. This is the passage I often refer to before my church family observes communion, because before we take communion, we are directed to undergo examination (1 Corinthians 11:28). We invite the Spirit to convict of sin. We want a heart just like his heart. And as David experienced, we can be forgiven and restored.
In the end, David is rightly revered at Israel’s greatest king, because David had a heart after God’s heart. What is so astounding is that we can have a heart after God’s heart as well. David was not a special case. God wants to transform our hearts, and even live in our hearts.
Let me conclude with Paul’s astounding prayer in Ephesians 3:14–19. Note how he describes what God desires for our hearts.
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Photo by Nick Herasimenka on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 