Where He Draws Near

Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit. (Psalm 34:18, WEB)

We tend to think God keeps his distance from us when we are at our lowest, as if failure were a smell that drives him off. So after a fall we pull back from prayer, figuring we should get ourselves presentable before we approach him again, cleaned up and steadier, less ashamed of the state we are in. David had a different picture entirely. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, he writes, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Not near to the impressive, not near to the ones who have it together, but near to the broken.

Think about what that means on the worst night. The very state you are in, ashamed, disgusted with yourself, spirit crushed under the weight of what you did, is the exact condition David says draws God close. Your brokenness is not a barrier that pushes him back to a safe distance. It is the doorway he comes through.

This flips the whole instinct to hide. You want to wait until you feel less wrecked before you talk to him, but he is already nearest when you are most wrecked, closer in the low hour than he seems on the ordinary days when you feel fine. The moment you are tempted to believe he has left the room in disappointment is often the moment he has pulled up a chair beside you and is sitting there in the dark with you. You do not have to feel his nearness for it to be real. David is telling you where God actually is, and the fact that he feels far is a symptom of the crushing, not a report on the distance. The very heaviness that makes you sure he has withdrawn is the heaviness that brought him close.

Father, I feel crushed tonight and I almost stayed away from you because of it. Thank you that this is where you come close. Meet me here, in the honest mess, and hold me together.