How can it be that little ones can be destroyed so easily? The children in the picture could be anywhere. Most people view little ones as innocent to some degree. But whatever innocence they have, it gets trampled with age or circumstance because of sin in them and in a broken world. The scriptures are clear: each one wanders away from God. Some seem to get a little further off the path. The destruction in some of the souls is a little more obvious than others, but sin’s work affects us all. No wonder the Lord addresses us so often as children, since we quite often look OK (just like these little children), but something inside is dreadfully wrong. Then the enemy of our souls–and there really is one–makes matters worse by destroying what he can destroy.
But Jesus Christ gathers the brokenhearted. He specializes in grabbing us from our internal disaster and heals us from the inside out. He does not just repair the one who calls on Him, He gives birth again to the person’s soul.
My wife and I had a real picture of the process during a recent evening. A young lady was brought for prayer to the ministry where we are staying. She was desperate and broken. She had wandered away from the Lord but the enemy of her soul wanted to destroy further. You could see the effects of her walk in her crippled eyes.
All we did was pray, calling on the One who healed our broken hearts. We asked Him to retrieve her from the perilous predicament she was in. Each one prayed fervently. You would think we were fighting for our lives, except we were fighting for her. But it was not in our strength; it was in the One who has strength. In the process, she repented of things that came to mind. The more she did and as the prayer continued, the more the chains that held her dropped away.
After an hour or so, the change was obvious. The young lady’s eyes were clear. They were wet with tears, but they were clear and peaceful. No person on earth can do this. It takes the One who heals the brokenhearted. He literally grabs us from the impending disaster, like a person retrieving someone from the flames of a hot fire.
When you see a work of redemption “up close and personal,” it gets your attention. It makes the heart rejoice, because you get to witness what God does perfectly: set a person free.
Jude 1:23 …save others by snatching them out of the fire…
Psalm 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted…
