PRÉCIS ON THE HEART OF THE FATHER TOWARD THE BROKEN AND CONTRITE: A PERSONAL TESTIMONY OF AND FOR GRACE

SCRIPTURE. “The Lord is close to those who are of a broken heart and saves such as are crushed with sorrow for sin and are humbly and

thoroughly penitent.” – PSALM 34:18, AMPC

KEY TERMS:

• “BROKEN.” ‘Shabar’ [לְנִשְׁבְּרֵי־]: “From a primitive root, ‘To burst or break down in pieces;’ hurt, crushed, destroyed [by life’s wounds]; near the end [as with a broken heart or spirit]; shattered [of hope and strength]; ‘causes the humble to search for a new birth [and new way of life].’”

• PENITENT. ‘Dakka’ [דַּכְּאֵי־]: “‘Crushed to powder toward remorse, regret;’ the sense of feeling pulverized by life; the essence of humility pressing one forward to God as Healer and Rescuer of the one who is hard pressed; He comes very close to these who are the opposite of proud.”

QUOTATION. “Sometimes what we think is best is actually not the best for us. God knows the Beginning from the End and knows how to make you whole. ‘Your brokenness is not the End of who you are; it is the Beginning.’ Life will break you, but God will mend you and make you stronger through it all. The Society in which we live approaches brokenness with trying to fix it themselves. We cannot fix ourselves. The Truth is only God can turn a life that is broken into a thing of beauty.” ― MANDY FENDER, Beautifully Broken: Giving God the Broken Pieces, 2016; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.’ — Ready to hear and succour them; though, by the course of His Providence toward them, He may sometimes seem to themselves and others to stand afar off. ‘God is near to all men; for in him they live: but he is near to the broken in heart, in a peculiar sense, as he is ever ready and able to help them; as men are much more capable of assisting those they value, when present with them than when absent from them; from which this form of speech, as applied to God, is taken.’ — Chandler. 

‘And saveth such as be of a contrite spirit’ — Those whose spirits are truly humbled under the hand of God, and the sense of their sins, whose hearts are subdued, and [willing to be made] obedient to God’s Will, and submissive to His Providence.” – JOSEPH BENSON, Notes on the Holy Bible, 5 vols., 1811-1818; edited

THE CRISIS. When I was 35 years old in October of 1979, I had come to the end of myself. I was an Associate Professor at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, certainly a respectable position to hold. But back in Shadowland where I really lived, I was an alcoholic, a player, a fully debauched human being with rapidly failing health who needed about 15 shots of the hard stuff ‘to get where I needed to be,’ in order to, you know – just carry on.

After too many dark liaisons soaked in a boozy haze, one bar fight too violent where I almost died, and a decrepit physical condition – I began to plan the only way out: Suicide. A bottle of 30 ml. Dalmane, a bottle of House of Stuart Scotch whiskey, and an RX7’s revved Wankel engine in a tightly shut garage would do the trick, I calculated.

THE CHOICE. In all of this Existential Chaos – for that is what it was for me – I had not realized that my Mom had given her likewise troubled life to Jesus Christ nine months before this, formed a prayer group that I later dubbed, “The God Squad,” all of whom interceded for me nonstop since the day they got together.

Too, I began receiving all sorts of religious stuff in the mail, which I usually File 13’d, except for one I for some reason kept on my shelf. It was Johnny Cash’s book of his own journey to find God midst drug and alcohol addictions that were killing him in a thousand ways: Man in Black (1975).

Finished it in one reading on the early morning of October 30, 1979, then with my Christian sister’s help (also a closet believer all her life), found my way to an old timey Pentecostal Church named, safely enough: “Lincoln Neighborhood Church.” After stumbling over my words to the Pastor there, Eugene Kraft (who looked alot like Gene Wilder), I tearfully confessed my need for God – even though I wasn’t even sure Who He was – or If He was!

NEW LIFE. Thus did this Invisible Jesus lift me, gradually, from a Life of Death to a completely new Lease on Life with greater Love and Power than I had ever before experienced. It took about 15 months for the addictions to dry up, along with the lifestyle that went with them. And though that God Road was at times rocky, it has led me to my 80^th year in good health, a marriage of 43 years, two now grown, amazing children, and thousands of young people I have been able to influence toward that Road as a teacher in all those years.

And: The ‘Circuit Ride Mission.’

I close with this: I meet many people in my community here in Colorado, several of whom have become precious to me. This is written for all those struggling souls as a Divine Life Preserver with the Promise that there is a Way Out of the Darkness.

His name is Yeshua ben David, the only begotten Son of Yahweh, His Father, well able and equipped and at the ready to cast a Lifeline of Rescue to anyone who is indeed brokenhearted and contrite, ready, finally, to take hold of His mighty hand to be led into the Blaze of His Incandescent Light for all our days.

And then, beloved, making our way to The New Jerusalem, to be majestically suspended above The New Earth for all of Eternity.

Selah.