Close to the Brokenhearted

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." -Psalm 34:18

This is one of those verses that gets highlighted in almost every Bible. We write it in sympathy cards, and it's a favorite in Christian bookstores. When we are brokenhearted, this promise of God's nearness is pure comfort-food for the heart.

But today when I read it, God brought the faces of these brokenhearted ones to mind instead.

Ever since last Friday, when Typhoon Haiyan ripped through the Philippines, images like this have been flooding the news.

Bodies lie buried under the rubble of their homes or out in the open, rotting. On Wednesday morning, the death toll stood at 2,275, and the Phillippine government estimates that over 582,000 are now homeless.*

As staggering as these numbers are, the real danger is the health crisis that now looms with medicines, food, and clean water dwindling. Relief has been arriving, but with roads impassable, most of it is bottlenecking at the airports. If doctors, shelter, food, water, and medicines don't arrive soon, the death toll from hunger and dysentery will quickly dwarf the original casualties from the storm.

And even if all relief arrives in time, how does one simply move on after finding your 4-year old under a tarp at a makeshift morgue? 

And the Lord is close to the brokenhearted.

A beautiful truth, but how will they know it? If this statement remains only sentiment, thousands will die. 

The closeness of Jesus is meant to be tangible, just as he came himself in a literal, touchable body. Emmanuel--God with us--meant a baby who teethed, a boy who skinned his knees, and a man who touched the untouchables with very literal hands. 

Today, the Church--God in us--means that we who profess to follow Jesus must show his closeness to the broken with our practical help, our literal bank accounts, and even our physical presence. 

Why does God comfort us?  So that "we can comfort those in any trouble with the same comfort we ourselves receive from God." (2 Corinthians 1:4)

In other words, we are part of a Divine pay-it-forward, not for warm fuzzies or so that we can look good on facebook, but so that those crushed in spirit will be saved. 

If you sense God asking you to take action for the typhoon survivors, please pray about giving to one of the organizations below within the next 12 hours. At this point, hours matter. 

The Philippine Red Cross has teams on the ground to help with rescue and relief.

UNICEF is providing food, medicine and clean water to children affected by the typhoon. 

Doctors Without Borders is sending teams of doctors, surgeons, water and sanitation experts.

If you are looking for a list of other organizations that are helping with this tragedy, click here. 

*The stats in this post were taken from this CNN news article.