In Need of a Broken Heart

Introduction

In biblical counseling, we rightly emphasize the importance of giving hope to our counselees from the very first session. It is often the case that people come to us despairing that their problems could ever find a solution, and they need to be reminded and encouraged that the Bible has the answer to each and every question that can be asked pertaining to life and godliness.

But did you realize that in order to help someone gain biblical hope, it is sometimes necessary to lead them to hopelessness? From the Psalms (34:18; 51:17) to Isaiah (61:1; 66:2), from Matthew (5:3) to James (2:5; 4:9), the Bible bears consistent testimony that the path to biblical hope is a path of humiliation, hardship, and hopelessness in oneself and one’s own ways and means.

While there are many places we might look in Scripture to see this reality worked out, chapters 57-58 of Isaiah provide a clear and timely picture of the need of brokenheartedness, in contrast with our common tendency to cling to our own versions of hope.

“Yet you did not say, ‘It is hopeless’”¹

Isaiah wrote in the context of judgment against Israel and Judah.²

Although Yahweh had redeemed Israel out of slavery in Egypt, had given them His good law, had brought them into the Promised Land, and had given them a king after His own heart, Israel had continually gone astray. In a pattern that continues into the New Testament, God’s people had looked to the other nations as a model and for rescue, and to themselves for righteousness (1 Samuel 8:6; Isaiah 51:1; 57:8-9; 58:2-3; Luke 18:9-14; John 19:15; Romans 9:31-10:3).

Although Israel always thought these efforts would lead to goodness and ease, and that they were justified in seeking these things, the actual outcome of their pursuit is markedly different from what Israel had in mind.

Not only does God rebuke them as unrighteous (the opposite of justified), He points out that their pursuits had led them only to hardship and weariness: “You have journeyed to the king with oil and increased your perfumes; you have sent your envoys a great distance and made them go down to Sheol. You were tired out by the length of your road” (Isaiah 57:9-10a).

Now, at this point, we might ask: What would common sense say? If Israel’s experience indicated that it was hard work to seek their own way, and this always only ended in misery, shouldn’t they have given up?

Indeed they should have—thus God’s rebuke: “Yet you did not say, ‘It is hopeless.’ You found renewed strength; therefore you did not faint” (Isaiah 57:10b). Rather than admitting the misery and folly of their pursuits, Israel doubled down in their fleshly efforts, leading to even more pain and judgment.

Contemporary Parallels

So, Israel’s failure was (in part) their refusal to say that their hope in themselves and in the world and their other idols was misplaced—they refused to say that it was “hopeless.”

It can be easy to look back at Israel and think, “It always went so much better when they followed God instead of the world and their own instincts, and He gave them so many chances and so many warnings—how could they have missed it so badly?”

However, this tendency is repeated by people in every generation, including our own. Oftentimes the sources of our misery and difficulty are the very things we hope to regain or obtain by seeking counsel. A man who hoped in riches finds himself broke, so he seeks counsel in hopes of establishing a secure financial future. A woman who hoped in a romantic relationship finds herself heartbroken and hurting, so she seeks counsel in hopes of learning better how to find and keep a good prospect for marriage.

Such examples can be multiplied. In each such case, to the extent that we allow such hopes to stand as the reasons for counseling, we risk helping our counselees “find renewed strength,” “not faint,” and not say, “It is hopeless.”

Part of our job as counselors, as painful as this can be, is to help our counselees see the worthlessness of what they have been chasing and embrace the brokenness and hopelessness to which God has led them by their hard circumstances. Like Paul did with his list of fleshly assets in Philippians 3, we all need to count things that were once the ground and substance of our hope and joy as no better than dung (Philippians 3:4-8).

From Hopelessness to Hope

Of course, we can’t leave them at hopelessness—and Isaiah has much hope for those who finally come to hopelessness in themselves and in their former definitions of success!

This is especially evident in chapter 55, where Isaiah invites us to forsake our own thoughts and ways (v. 7), and to come to God and receive more abundance and goodness than we can possibly imagine. This goodness takes the form of an abundant pardon, compassion, and all of the provision necessary for an abundant life, as the seeker will find Yahweh Himself (vv. 1, 6-7). The catch? The seeker must be thirsty, and must come without money (v. 1)—both of which mean surrendering our thoughts and ways (v. 7).

Two questions: Why do we need to change our thoughts and ways to be thirsty and come without money? And how can such lavish goodness not cost us anything?

Well, as you might expect, the answers to these questions are connected. First, in order to be thirsty, we need to admit that what we’ve been “drinking” (or wanting to “drink”) can never quench our thirst. Similarly, to come “without money,” we must admit that the things we’ve thought of as valuable (including anything we might offer God by way of religion) are worthless.

What can lead us to change our thoughts and ways like this?

Back up a little further in Isaiah. Isaiah 52:13-53:12 tells exactly how God provides this lavish goodness “without money and without cost”—He does so at His own expense, through the penal substitutionary death of His Suffering Servant (the Messiah). This, of course, is the gospel!

Conclusion

As counterintuitive as it might be, the path to hope often must lead through hopelessness.

And as always, it is good to turn the question to yourself, counselor: Have you looked at everything you’ve been tempted to pursue apart from Christ, and said, “It is hopeless”? Only then will you be ministering with the requisite humility and dependence on your Savior, captured well in this famous quote: as one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

¹ Isaiah 57:10b. Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations in this paper are from the Legacy Standard Bible (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 2021).

² This judgment would include the fall of the northern kingdom (which occurred in Isaiah’s lifetime), as well as the Babylonian captivity (of which he prophesied, although it would not take place until approximately 100 years after his lifetime). For more on Isaiah, see my previous post “Counseling from Isaiah” (https://thecbcd.org/resources/counseling-from-isaiah-a-heart-deep-hope-in-yahweh).