The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise (Psalm 51:17 NIV).
We think often in terms contrary and opposite to what God thinks. We have the mistaken notion that we cannot approach God when we are not in our very best.
What a wrong thing it is to stay away from God, when God bids us to draw near Him.
We are ashamed to stand before God with a broken heart, broken dreams and shattered hopes. Yet God despises them not. He knows that it is in this valley of sorrow that our pride is broken and shattered. Thus we learn to be meek.
And then there is nothing we can be proud of. Nothing to hold on to. Nothing to display as our success. It is then that our heart is truly broken due to our sinfulness. It is then that the time is ripe to meet God.
Offering the broken heart to God is a supreme sacrifice. This is so because we in our natural wisdom think that we have to be perfect to approach God. But if it were true, we can never approach God, for none of us is ever perfect.
So going to God with a bleeding and wounded heart; with sorrow of our sin stinging sharp and paining, is a great sacrifice. And amazingly God is willing to accept a broken and contrite heart as an acceptable sacrifice.
Whatever is broken, whatever is wounded, God is able to mend and heal. He will replace with sweetness whatever has proved bitter. But sacrifice means that it has to be offered unto God. We cannot just keep back something.
When it hurts the most, it is time to take that to God and leave it there. He does not despise this offering.
—
More Manna: