On this December 17, perhaps your heart feels more bruised than festive. Psalm 34:18 tells us that in those very moments of deep ache, God doesn’t back away—He draws near. He comes close to the brokenhearted and moves to rescue those whose spirits are crushed under the weight of grief, loss, regret, or disappointment. This verse is not a sentimental slogan; it is the living God declaring where He positions Himself when His children are in pain: right beside them.

When God Feels Far, but Is Actually Near

Pain has a way of whispering lies. It tells you that you are abandoned, overlooked, or somehow disqualified from God’s attention. Yet the psalmist declares, “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). Your tears are not proof that God has left you; they are often the very places where He is quietly, faithfully at work. The cross proves this—Jesus entered our suffering, not as an observer, but as a Savior who bled, wept, and died.

When your world feels shattered, God’s nearness is not measured by your emotions, but by His promise. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). Jesus Himself said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33). That means your present darkness does not get the final word. The One who stands beside you in the valley is the same One who has already conquered the grave.

The Strange Gift of a Contrite Spirit

We don’t usually see brokenness as a gift. We want to be strong, composed, and in control. But Scripture speaks of something precious in being humbled and honest before God. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). Brokenness becomes beautiful when it is brought to Him, not hidden from Him. In that place, your pretense falls away, and the real you stands before the real God.

Listen to how He describes Himself: “For this is what the high and exalted One says—He who lives forever, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, but also with the contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isaiah 57:15). The God who reigns in glory also stoops to revive crushed hearts. Your contrition—your humble, repentant, honest sorrow—is not a disqualification; it is actually the doorway through which His reviving presence enters.

Walking Today in His Nearness

So what does it look like to live this truth today, not just admire it? It begins with turning your broken heart toward Him instead of away from Him. Tell Him exactly where it hurts and where you’ve sinned. “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). Bring your anxiety, confusion, even your numbness. He invites you: “Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). God’s care is not theoretical; He calls you to place real burdens into His real hands.

Then, trust that He is weaving purpose into what feels pointless. “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). That doesn’t trivialize your pain; it anchors it in His sovereign love. As you walk through this day—this specific day, December 17—choose one concrete step of drawing near: a whispered prayer, a psalm read slowly, a confession shared with a trusted believer, a song of worship offered through tears. In these simple acts, you are living out the reality that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted—and that includes you.

Lord, thank You for staying close when my heart is breaking; today, help me turn toward You in every ache and obey You in every step.

WILL ROGERS ONCE OPINED that a sure way to prevent war would be to abolish peace conferences.

Of course Will, as usual, had his tongue in his cheek; he meant only to poke fun at the weak habit of substituting talk for action. Still there is more than a little uncomfortable truth in his remark.

This above all others is the age of much talk. Hardly a day passes that the newspapers do not carry one or another of the headlines "Talks to Begin" or "Talks to Continue" or "Talks to Resume." The notion back of this endless official chatter is that all differences between men result from their failure to understand each other; if each can discover exactly what the other thinks they will find to their delight that they are really in full agreement after all. Then they have only to smile, shake hands, go home and live happily ever after.

At the bottom of all this is the glutenous, one-world, all-men-are-brothers philosophy that has taken such hold on the minds of many of our educators and politicians. (The hardheaded realists of the Communist camp know better; maybe that is why they are makingsuch alarming advances throughout the world while the all-men-are-brothers devotees are running around in confusion, trying to keep smiling if it kills them.)

Tolerance, charity, understanding, good will, patience and other such words and ideas are lifted from the Bible, misunderstood and applied indiscriminately to every situation. The kidnaper will not steal your baby if you only try to understand him; the burglar caught sneaking into your house with a gun is not really bad; he is just hungry for fellowship and togetherness; the gang killer taking his victim for a oneway ride can be dissuaded from committing murder if someone will only have faith in his basic goodness and have a talk with him. And this is supposed to be the teaching of Jesus, which it most certainly is not.

The big thing now is to "keep in touch." Never let the dialogue die and never accept any decision as final; everything can be negotiated. Where there is life there is talk and where there is talk there is hope. "As long as they are talking they are not shooting at each other," say the advocates of the long palaver, and in so saying they forget Pearl Harbor.

This yen to confer has hit the church also, which is not strange since almost everything the church is doing these days has been suggested to her by the world. I observe with pained amusement how many water boys of the pulpit in their effort to be prophets are standing up straight and tall and speaking out boldly in favor of ideas that have been previously fed into their minds by the psychiatrists, the sociologists, the novelists, the scientists and the secular educators. The ability to appraise correctly the direction public opinion is moving is a gift not to be despised; by means of it we preachers can talk loudly and still stay out of trouble.

A new Decalogue has been adopted by the neo-Christians of our day, the first word of which reads "Thou shalt not disagree"; and a new set of Beatitudes too, which begins "Blessed are they that tolerate everything, for they shall not be made accountable for anything." It is now the accepted thing to talk over religious differences in public with the understanding that no one will try to convert another or point out errors in his belief. The purpose of these talks is not to confront truth, but to discover how the followers of other religions think and thus benefit from their views as we hope they will from ours.

It is a truism that people agree to disagree only about matters they consider unimportant. No man is tolerant when it concerns his life or the life of his child, and no one will agree to negotiate over any religious matter he considers vital to his eternal welfare. Imagine Moses agreeing to take part in a panel discussion with Israel over the golden calf; or Elijah engaging in a gentlemanly dialogue with the prophets of Baal. Or try to picture our Lord Jesus Christ seeking a meeting of minds with the Pharisees to iron out differences; or Athanasius trying to rise above his differences with Arius in order to achieve union on a higher level; or Luther crawling into the presence of the pope in the name of a broader Christian fellowship.

The desire to be liked even if not respected is a great weakness in any man's character, and in that of a minister of Jesus Christ it is a weakness wholly inexcusable. The popular image of the man of God as a smiling, congenial, asexual religious mascot whose handshake is always soft and whose head is always bobbing in the perpetual Yes of universal acquiescence is not the image found in the Scriptures of truth.

The blessing of God is promised to the peacemaker, but the religious negotiator had better watch his step. The ability to settle quarrels between members of God's household is a heavenly gift and one that should be assiduously cultivated. The discerning soul who can reconcile separated friends by prayer and appeal to the Scriptures is worth his weight in diamonds.

That is one thing, but the effort to achieve unity at the expense of truth and righteousness is another. To seek to be friends with those who will not be the friends of Christ is to be a traitor to our Lord. Darkness and light can never be brought together by talk. Some things are not negotiable.

They went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came. - Genesis 12:5

The reference of these words, as we all know, is to Abraham’s great act of faith, when he left Haran and his native place to begin the pilgrim-life which God had called him to undertake. It is a strange description of a journey to leave out the journey altogether, and only to mark two points - the beginning and the end. The keynotes of the narrative are these two - " went forth"; " came in." The only things worth noticing about any life are whither it was directed and whether it reached its aim. All the toils of the road, the privations, the weary marches, the hunger and thirst, the perils and foes, are all dropped out of sight. Never mind about these. They "went forth to go"; - and they came where they went to go. As one of our modern poets has it, there are

"Two points in the adventure of the diver,

One when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,

One when, a prince, he rises with his pearl."

"They went forth " for one definite purpose, "to go into the land of Canaan." Now, perhaps, you will remember that the New Testament lays stress upon what might, at first sight, seem a contradiction; and says that Abraham went out, " not knowing whither he went." But there is no real contradiction. Both statements are true. In Abraham’s case there was a combination of knowledge and ignorance similar to that which we may all have in our lives; for he certainly knew that he was to be led at last to a land which he should afterwards inherit, and he knew, when he crossed Euphrates and set his face westwards, that Canaan was his immediate "objective point" (as soldiers say), but he did not know, till after his departure from his first home, that Canaan was the promised land. Abraham went forth, as it were, with sealed orders. He was bid to go to a certain place, and, when there, he would get further instructions. He knew that he was to go to Canaan, and beyond that point all was dark, except for the sparkle of the great hope that gleamed on the horizon in front, as a sunlit summit rises above a sea of mist between it and the traveller. Like such a traveller, Abraham could not accurately tell how far off the shining peak was, nor where, in the intervening gorges full of mist, the path lay; but he plunged into the darkness with a good heart, because he had caught a glimpse of his journey’s end. So with us. We may have clear before us the ultimate aim and goal of our lives, and also the step which we have to take now, in pressing towards it; while between these two there stretches a valley full of mist, the breadth of which may be measured by years or by hours, for all that we know, and the rough places and green pastures of which are equally hidden from us. We have to make sure that the mountain peak which we think we see, with the sunlight playing on its sides, is not delusive cloud, but solid reality, and we have to be very certain that God has bid us step out on the yard of ground in front of us which we can see; and, having secured these certainties, we have to cast ourselves into the obscurity before us, and to carry in our hearts the bright vision of the end, to encourage us in the difficulties of the road,