“Thus the creation of the world and the power of God are before our eyes. But the main thing is to know with what purpose and what plan God made these things. The present verse of the psalm [Psalm 51:17] sets forth this knowledge very pleasantly, that God is the kind of God who does nothing for any other purpose than to regard and love the contrite, vexed, and troubled, and that He is a God of the humble and the troubled. If anyone could grasp this definition with his heart, he would be a theologian. God cannot be grasped in His majesty and power. Therefore this definition opens the will of God to us, that He is a God not of death but of life, not of damnation but of salvation, not the enemy of the humble and the damned but their lover and helper – simply that He is the God of life, salvation, quiet, peace, and all comfort and happiness.”
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works v. 12 403