The Great Healer

May 11, 2023

Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him! The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the exiles of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.

- Psalm 147:1-5

Psalm 147 tells us that our God is one that builds up and gathers His people.

Where there are broken hearts – He heals. Where there are wounds – He binds. Where there is unknown – He knows all, even the names of the stars.

This past week, this passage popped up in a Bible reading plan at the perfect time. I had been inundated with stories of brokenness, a family in the church grieving a loss, a friend navigating job loss, a loved one diagnosed with cancer. It felt like everywhere I looked there was pain. Do you ever feel that way? Whether it’s the hurt of your own story, or the headlines on the news articles, sometimes it feels like all we can see, feel, and hear is the pain that fills this world.

In comes the words of the psalmist, “Praise the Lord.” How do we praise Him amidst the pain? How do we look to God and call Him good when our only question is “Why?”

And as I prayed through this in regards to the people in my life that I know are hurting, I felt God reminding me that when it comes to the pain of this world, He is always the antidote by being the opposite.

When the Jews were exiled, Psalm 147 tells us, He was the gatherer.
When we’re brokenhearted, He is the healer.
When we’re wounded, He is the binder of those wounds.
When we don’t understand, when we can’t make sense of it all, His understanding has no limit.

God can still be good because He is always the opposite of the thing causing us the most pain.

When the money fell through, God was still sustaining. When the health failed, God was still the Great Healer. When the person abandoned you, He never left, not even for a minute.

So as I read Psalm 147, my heart was so comforted by our Great Healer. When we look around and see pain, we can remind ourselves that God is the opposite. He is the source of peace when all seems lost.

Friend, today, if all feels lost, remind yourself that God is the light in your darkness. The greatest source of pain is also the greatest opportunity to see the goodness of God.