Thanking God for Broken Bones

“Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part [of my heart] you will make me know wisdom. Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness and be satisfied; Let the bones which You have broken rejoice.” (Psalm 51:6-8, AMP)

“The will of God is love. And love suffers…Love is always inextricably bound up in sacrifice.” Elisabeth Elliot makes this statement in her book, Suffering is Never for Nothing. How simple, and yet how difficult to truly come to grips with.

God is love, love is sacrifice, and those sacrifices in the name of love cause us to suffer. Love and suffering are inextricably bound together. You can’t have one without the other, and our best illustration of it is the cross. Jesus went through just about the most suffering a person possibly can go through on the cross. He was humiliated, beaten, bloody, and broken. He died very publically for all to see. He was spat on, betrayed, and completely crushed. 

And yet, He did it for love. He faced that suffering for the love that God has for us. And every moment after the cross proves that to those who pick up their own personal crosses to follow Him. 

The physical symbol of our whole faith is a symbol of love to us, and yet an instrument of death and suffering to the world. But it perfectly illustrates what Elisabeth Elliot is talking about when she says that the will of God is love, and love suffers. They are connected, even though our simple view of love tends to emphasize the rose-colored side of love, and blocks out the suffering.

And yet, we all know that adversity is an inevitable part of this life we live. No one has ever lived a life in which there was no conflict or affliction. Of course, there are some that have more than others– Elisabeth Elliot herself was a widow twice over and still decided to marry again, which in itself proves that suffering is worth the experience in order to experience the love that is bound to it.

But for those who go through this life without God, without the truth of His Gospel, how do they cope with that suffering? That’s not something I can really answer except to say they must have little to no hope. At least in our moments of suffering as Christians, we can cling to the unshakeable fact that our God is the same love and salvation that He always is. He is still the same God of peace that He was before tragedy strikes.

In Psalm 51, we find David in the moments after He was found to be sinning with Bathsheba. He had an affair with a married woman, got her pregnant, and had her husband killed, and while I think we can all agree that David sort of brought that one on Himself, David feels crushed by the fact that He has completely offended God by His actions. And in that moment of complete separation from God, David begs God to forgive him with some very profound words.

He acknowledges that God wants us to impart truth in our innermost being. God wants His Truth to be the most intimate part of who we are. His truth should be at the quick of our very souls, hidden in our hearts where God shares His wisdom with us. Without His truth, we cannot understand His wisdom and we are lost.

David asks the Lord to purify him with hyssop. In the Bible, hyssop is used in many cleansing processes, used in connection with plagues, leprosy, and respiratory ailments. It was also used at the first Passover. The Israelites were told to use a bunch of hyssop, dip it in lamb’s blood, and mark their doorways to be spared from the last plague.

David, of course, is invoking this hyssop as an illustration, likening his transgressions as a disease in need of physical purification. What David didn’t realize is that unwittingly uses a metaphor that also has strong ties to the blood of the lamb. That blood that was shed in love for us through the greatest moment of suffering by God. Through that sacrifice, we are clean, purified, and washed whiter than snow. Through that sacrifice, God’s love is realized.

God, like I said before, is the same God David has always known. He’s the same God that made him King of Israel. The same God that faithfully carried David through his years in the wilderness. The same God that helped David slay giants, lead armies, and walked with David intimately. It was still the same God that named David as a man after God’s own heart.

It was David who was changed; by his stubborn and insistent flesh, by the situation that he himself designed, and by his sin. But David does something strange in this psalm. In verse 8, he essentially asks God to enable himself to rejoice in this suffering and brokenness. He asks God to let the bones which God has broken rejoice.

David knows that he messed up, but he also acknowledges that God broke him and that somehow, that breaking was a blessing. Ultimately, we know that God ordained and willed that breaking and suffering in order to cut through David’s own pride and draw him closer to rely on the Lord. God used that terrible situation in order to humble David and bring him to a place where David could rejoice over the places that he felt broken because God broke them.

What a weird, yet really profound thing to pray. Have you ever thanked God for your broken bones? Have you ever asked God to help you rejoice over your suffering? That He would bring you to a place where you were truly crushed in order for you to feel that love He has for you more intimately? 

Maybe we need to take some time today to thank God for whatever suffering we are going through today. Maybe we need to thank Him for joblessness, for being a single parent, for disease, or for heartbreak today. If not for that suffering, we would not know His love in a real and arresting way. If not for love that pursues so fiercely that it would lay down its life, we would have nothing.

Whatever it is that feels like a broken bone today, we need to first acknowledge that it is God that willed it to break, and then we should ask Him to empower us to rejoice in that breaking– even if it hurts like the worst hell you can imagine– so that we can really see His love for us intimately.