The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (ESV)

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. (NIV)

My friend’s grandfather passed away. Her grandmother passed away a few hours later. They say she died of a broken heart.

Growing up I thought a broken heart was some terrible scar from a love gone wrong. Something to survive. Something to endure. Something to hopefully avoid entirely if we’re smart enough. Guarded enough. Careful enough.

That's how many of us treat our hearts before God, too. We'll show Him our strengths and our victories. But never trust him with our weaknesses and failures. We show up before God prim, proper, and polished.

But heartbreak is not only a wound. It's a starting point. Painful? Yes. But purposeful? Absolutely.

When David was anointed, he was called a man after God's own heart. In that time, the heart was seen as the center of the soul. Not just a blood pump, but the seat of thought, morality, and conscience.

To say David had a heart like God's is to say he saw people the way God saw them. Broken and beautiful.

That's the posture behind Psalm 51:17. God doesn't want puffed up pride. He wants a humble heart. A broken and contrite heart. A broken heart grieves. A contrite heart repents. Together they describe someone grieved by sin who turns back to God. When Adam sinned, he hid from God. When David sinned, he ran to Him.

Psalm 51 was written after David's infamous affair with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. His lowest moment. And there, he doesn't run from God. He runs to Him with nothing but a heart in pieces. Earlier in this Psalm David writes, “Against you, you only, have I sinned.” His heart is uniquely broken by what he’s done to God. And he brings that broken heart to Him.

That's the invitation for us too. Stop hiding our broken hearts from the One who won't despise them. Keeping your heart from God–bring it to him. Sin you've been hiding–bring it to him. Grief and sorrow you’ve been suffering–bring it.

A broken heart isn't only a scar from love gone wrong it’s exactly what God's been waiting for.

Written by Rainer Erani