Broken Part 1: Until Nothing Is Left But Everything
I hate when people talk about how Jesus loves our brokenness with a bright shining smile on their face. Probably this isn’t the most Christian thing to say but it bothers me.
Personally, I have been through seasons in which God was breaking me. I guess, more aptly put, I hope that the particular season is over. During this time, it seemed like every aspect of my life was in transition. Job, living situation, health, well-being, everything was being taken. It was a time that I fearfully left everything and everyone I knew and held dear, thinking I would never see them again. Tears were shed by many people, but no one more than me.
Although I was losing everything I held dear, the truly broken state came inside me. I felt like a failure and that I was somehow less of a man. That I had failed in my calling and the task that Christ had set before me.
If you had come to me and said how GREAT it is to be broken, I likely would have punched you in the face.
It was at my lowest point that I had to make a decision. Not a new decision but one I had made before. Would Jesus be everything? If I could lose everything and everyone, living in solitude, but had Jesus, would I have enough? Brokenness understands that even when you have nothing, you have everything in Christ Jesus.
Jesus will refuse to be anything less than everything and our Great High King will refuse to share the throne. If you pray the prayer that Jesus become your everything, be prepared to give up everything else. Brokenness is not fun but it is essential. We must be broken from the false idols of things that may not even be bad but that sit on the throne of our hearts where Christ belongs. We invite Jesus to be our Savior King and bit by bit, everything that sits atop the throne will be chiseled, destroyed, and crumbled until the only thing that remains is the author of perfection and life.
We will ask what has become of our heart and the King, the Great King, will declare to us with strength but love “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26, NIV) We are made new, our life recalibrate and reformed by the transformative grace of a Savior who will stop at nothing to rescue his beloved creations bearing his image.
You will have nothing…
…nothing but Jesus. And in that you will have everything.
The promise of our Savior is that He will never leave us or forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6) and that He will always be for us not against us (Romans 8:31). During the darkest moment when we feel like our life is crumbling, we need not fear dear of despair because God is with us (Psalm 23). In fact, we are given new mercies every day (Lamentations 3:22-23).
Truth be told, I still occasionally struggle with things taking the throne of my heart. I fear losing those who are dear to me or failing at the purpose that God has set for me. But I know I am loved by God and that it is his grace that sustains me. I am not a failure because my God is victorious. I am not alone because God is with me.
When we have nothing, we see that we have everything.
One Response
Daniel, thanks for sharing this. Brokenness is certainly something I think everyone goes through before they’re mightily used of God. We see it in every single person used mightily of God in The Bible.
That said, I understand your frustration of the mentality that brokenness is so wonderful. LOL! It hurts. It’s painful. It rips. It tears. It’s agonizing. So while I understand those that say it’s “wonderful”, the reality is it’s hard.
BUT, it’s hard until we “get it.” Right? It’s hard until we get to that point where we realize Jesus is enough. I think that point is what people call wonderful. That point of surrender where we feel His presence and hear His voice more clearly than before.
I would gently, but assertively argue however, that you’re no longer in a state of “brokenness” at that point. I wouldn’t call it “fixed.” but fixated. We find ourselves fixated on God. His wonder. his grace. His love. His magnificence.
It’s at this point that we feel healed, whole, revived, stabilized, grounded. It’s where we discover our identity. It’s where we find power, but we find it through Love.
…and the only thing that matters is faith, that worketh by love…