Today we took communion at church. During the time leading up to this we sang a song about being broken and it got me to really thinking about brokenness and what we do with the idea of being broken...this was started and never finished. For brokenness is a hard thing to accept as being a good thing. I started again and I hope you are blessed by where God has lead. I think this will be an ongoing study and one done in real time as I live it. I'm sure there will be things to add, but now this is where I find myself.
This is an idea God has helped me continue to work through on several occasions over the last couple of years. I can say it doesn't always feel good and it isn't a growth process I enjoy. However, ever time He reminds me of my own brokenness I start to see those around me who really need to have a different perspective on where they are. I've been challenged to change my question of "why me" to one of "why not me." Yes, i have had some challenges and reaped some painful consequences from "bad" decisions; yet, it is those very experiences God has used to refine me. It is those times I'd change in my humanism, those times I feel are broken that He uses to a cause far greater than myself. So, I don't know that I would define them as bad per say, just things that have a lesson I hope I don't forget and others can learn from and avoid. So the current version of my brokenness:
In a world of microwave dinners ready in mere minutes,
instant communication around the world, and a culture inundated with instant
gratification, God has begun to teach me the beauty of being broken. We live in a self-help world where everything
from math to plumbing to gardening has its own how-to book. There is a book on how to fix every
relationship problem we encounter. Yet,
I don’t find a single Bible verse where God asks, commands, nor directs us to
fix ourselves. We have been born in into
a sin sick world that is dying and not once can I find a place where God asks
us to cure our own sickness. He is the
one who heals and He is the one who does all the work. Thus, to admit my own short-comings and
brokenness (or non-wholeness) is to allow God to get the glory and honor of
even the smallest things accomplished through this human life I live.
It is quiet astounding to know as backwards as modern
thought would proclaim it, I can do more by being less; less of me means more
of God. However, even a look through the
“faith chapter” in Hebrews is full of men with limitations and broken
places. Abraham lied about Sarah being
his wife and had a speech impediment. Isaac
was deceived and blessed the wrong son. Joseph was hated by his brothers and
left for dead. Moses was to have been killed at birth and was hidden and raised
as another’s son. It gives me hope of what God can do in my life despite the
past I’d like to change…the very past He used to change my heart. He allows my scars to minister to others; to
be the very place where grace and mercy collide. It is a place that I can choose to live in isolation
and regret or I can choose to let my life thus far ripple out and affect those
God puts in my path.
Attending a Woman of Faith event I have heard Andy Andrews
speak and have read some of his books. He is a great speaker and writer and
tells a story I am reminded of now. It
is a story that has helped me realize that I have a choice to choose and that
my choices will have farther reaching effects than one might first think. The story
is of Norman Borlaug, the man who received the Nobel Peace prize for saving
millions of lives with his hybridization of corn. But was he really the one to
save those lives? Could it be that the
real credit lies with Henry Wallace who was the Secretary of Agriculture under
President Roosevelt? It was Wallace who commissioned Borlaug to the research
station in Mexico that was responsible for producing the hybrid corn that saved
millions. So, Wallace should have been given the Nobel Prize. But maybe it is George Washing Carver who
deserves the prize? It was Carver, who while working on discovering uses for
the peanut and sweet potato spent time with the six year old Carver. It was here that Wallace discovered the possibilities
of plant science that would inspire him to commission Borlaug to Mexico. Or
maybe it wasn’t Caver; maybe it was Moses and Susan, farmers from Diamond
Missouri. Moses and Susan lived in a slave state but did not support slavery.
Mary was friends with a young black woman, Mary Washington, who lived on the
farm. One night Quantrill’s Raiders
pillaged the farm and took Mary and her infant son. Susan begged her husband to do something and
he sent word out to set up a meeting with the raiders. He traded his best horse, all that he and
Susan had left for Mary’s son, George.
Moses and Susan raised George as their own knowing Mary was already
dead. Thus, the Nobel Prize belongs to
them. Unless…. As you see the choices of
today aren’t limited to today. I may
never see the full fruition of the daily choices I make this side of heaven but
it doesn’t change the fact that our choices do matter to more than self. We don’t live in a bubble; what will you and
I decide today that may save billions of lives only a few generations from now?
Knowing these things, I ask God to break my heart not only
for what breaks His but also for what I need to be small so He can be big. I ask that I remember that He sees my real
heart no matter what the world sees; being “good” simply isn’t good
enough. He knows the nights I cry myself
to sleep; the times I cry out because I don’t understand; the times I am weak
of mind and will, the times I consider just giving up and taking matters into
my own hands. He knows all these
moments, loves me anyway, and will use them to bless to others. For you see as Nancy
Leigh DeMoss expresses, “Proud people keep others at arm’s length. Broken people
are willing to take the risks of getting close to others and loving intimately.” My brokenness not only makes me useable, approachable,
and “normal” but it is what allows me to love others in an intimate way. It is the broken places that allow me to
cherish those whom God has and will bless me with.
Psalms 51:17 says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit: A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise (ASV).” I can choose to hide and wallow in my pain or
I can choose to walk into the world and hold my broken places up to God as an
offering. I can choose to bemoan my past
or I can choose to be thankful for the responsibility of being entrusted with
broken places. I can scream at God about
why He would allow these things or I can be a bit more realistic and ask “Why
not me?” I can see things the way the modern
world would dictate or I can look at things with God’s eyes and perspective. “Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”—contrary
to what we would expect, brokenness is the pathway to blessing! There are no alternative routes; there are no
short-cuts. The very thing we dread and
are tempted to resist is actually the means to God’s greatest blessings in our
lives,” as Nancy Leigh DeMoss has stated. That pathway of blessing is for more
than me and my own personal wants, pleasure, or torment. How I choose to see that pathway is my own
choice and one I must frequently be reminded is not all about me.
God is good. Always. However,
sin is bad. We were given free-will and
not just made puppets of an all-controlling God. We choose to sin because we are human; other
people sin because they are human. Sin
has consequences and though Jesus serves as our sacrifice to remove the eternal
judgment of sin we still have to face the consequences. Forgiveness doesn’t equal restitution and a “get
out of jail free card.” Then there are
times that we aren’t under judgment but are walking through the refining fires
to create a more Christ-like self. Regardless
of why we walk the road we walk and face the trial and tribulation we face, we
can be assured that it has been filtered through God and will be used for
good. Being broken for whatever reason
makes one small and God big as well as proving to be good. If you haven’t seen “good”, you haven’t seen
the end.
More thoughts on brokenness and wisdom beyond me:
“The broken person…will find that all of the resources of
heaven and all of the Spirit’s power are now at his disposal and, unless heaven’s
riches can be exhausted or the Spirit’s power can be found wanting, he cannot
come up short.” (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“True brokenness is a lifestyle—a moment-by-moment lifestyle
of agreeing with God about the true condition of my heart and life—not as
everyone else thinks it is but as He knows it to be.” (Nancy Leigh DeMoss)
