The 23rd Psalm, known as the Shepherd Psalm, is one of the most beloved chapters in the Bible. Here we read the tender line, “He restores my soul.” David likely wrote this psalm in the twilight years of his life, a life which had seen him broken by painful trials and by the consequences of his own sin, but had also seen him restored and made whole again. He had learned the precious lesson that God is in the business of restoring broken things. He would rather fix a broken man than throw him away — “a bruised reed he will not break; a smoking wick he will not quench” (Matt. 12:20).
How good it is to know that there is a God who cares for us and wants to restore us. We need his restoration. We all, from time to time, find ourselves languishing as “damaged goods,” whether from our own sins and mistakes, or from the mistreatment of others, or from the common trials of life. Despair reigns in our inner man. We find no strength and see no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel. But God is an ever present help in trouble (Ps. 46:1). He enables us to put off the spirit of heaviness and put on the oil of joy (Is. 61:3).
Do you feel like damaged goods? Are you wounded, bitter, angry, struggling? Are you enslaved on a destructive path that hurts yourself and those you love? Look to God — and be restored.