Finding Comfort in Lowly Places

There’s no place for lowliness in a world that values glory and prestige above humility and long-suffering. But at the heart of the Christian Gospel is the truth that God dwells with the lowly, with those who are humble and those who suffer. This is what we encounter in Isaiah 57:15: 

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,  who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”

The God who is enthroned in the highest possible place comes to us where we least expect, in lowly places. The word “contrite” can also be translated as “crushed,” which has to do with the dirt that we walk on. It is a reminder of where we come from. You and I are created from dirt. It’s a lowly origin that should humble us. Only those who recognize this truth does God delight to dwell with. In Christ, God has come for the lowly. He became one of us — with dirty finger nails and all. 

What this tells us is that there is comfort when we feel utterly depressed, and unspeakably broken-hearted. The lowly places where we can’t see any hope, God is there. And that’s exactly where he loves to make his presence known to us. That is where God chooses to meet with us. We find a God who is high and lifted up in the lowliest of places—at the cross. So when your days are full of affliction and your nights are drowned with streams of tears, look to the cross of Jesus.