Perpetually Broken

I’ve had this post saved in draft since September last year, but I never really felt right about posting it. A couple days ago it came back around when I got the opportunity to talk to one of my discipleship partners about it. So, I started feeling like it was time to finish and post it, then we talked about it in Life Group last night and that confirmed it. So, here it is…

Over the last year and a half I’ve really began to understand just how important brokenness is. Christ's is a ministry of suffering, there is no way around that. If we choose to share in Christ's glory, Romans 8:17 says we must, not should, share in His [Christ's] suffering. Brokenness doesn't necessarily involve suffering as we understand it. But brokenness is the key to so much in God's Kingdom. God desires us to come to Him with a broken spirit. Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.” I've come to understand, through experience, that brokenness is where God teaches you. I've said it in a blog before, while God is present both on the mountain and in the valley, His purpose is in the valley (this is a spin off of something that my friend Thomas – his blog HERE – and I have talked about in the past). God uses the valleys, or the wilderness, to purify us, to teach us, to grow us and move us toward the promise He holds for us. While brokenness is vital to growing in Christ and becoming the person that God desires us to be, it's importance isn't the point of this post.

As I walked in and out of my various seasons of brokenness, I began to realize that God seemed to talk to me and direct my steps more as I was walking through the valleys. Not that He didn't when things were good, but there was, what seemed like, continuous interaction throughout the actual suffering. Once the season of brokenness lifted, there seemed to be a decrease in the amount of communication between God and I. I now realize that God became more silent to allow me to implement the stuff He had taught me. In doing so I was able to realize His purpose in that suffering and it helped me grow in faith and holiness. However, at that time I began to actually long for the days of suffering because I desired to hear from God. I began to look for opportunities that could be considered brokenness or suffering. Many times I would look at a circumstance that was less than desirable and call it suffering and brokenness. I was trying to live this life of brokenness that was fully based on my outside circumstance. In essence I believed that if I remained perpetually broken, then my connection to God would be more constant. I was fabricating this false brokenness hoping that it was the kind of brokenness God wanted, but in reality I spent more time trying to be “broken” than actually trying to seek Him more and use what He had taught me though that season.

God doesn't require the type of suffering or brokenness that comes from outside circumstances. Of course as Psalm 119:71 points out, that suffering is good for us and He does use it to teach us, lead us and even discipline us, but I don't know that He is looking for circumstances to define the brokenness that He desires. He desires our hearts to break for the things that break His, He desires our spirits to constantly long for more of Him. David is a beautiful example of what brokenness before God should look like. Even though he was a king and could have, and did, literally anything he desired, his spirit was always in agony because he desired to be closer to God, to know Him more. Through the Psalms David praises God, but he is constantly tormented by the thought of God abandoning him. He wanted God that bad and the thought of losing Him caused David to live in this constant state of suffering and brokenness.

Early Christian monks used to fabricate suffering in the form of physical punishment to their bodies, such as whipping themselves or banging their heads against wooden boards. They used this self inflicted suffering as proof of their piety. I think we often still do that, only we've traded in the whips and wooden boards for late bills and jobs we hate, but endure. That is not to say that God is not or will not use that suffering to teach us, but (and I know I have) we can often use that stuff as our evidence of suffering. Unfortunately, when used this way, instead of driving us toward God, as suffering for the sake of the cross should, these things cause God to decrease and us to increase as the focus of concern. This is backwards and only serve to drive a wedge between us and God's presence.

I also figured out that brokenness and suffering are not mutually exclusive. You can be high on the mountain and still have a heart that is constantly broken by the desire to know God more, to be with Him more and to want what He wants. I thirst for God and to thirst for God is one thing, but to desire to always thirst for Him is a whole other level of brokenness that I've not achieved and can't imagine what it would even be like. The bottom line is this: God does desire us to come to Him broken, but He doesn't want it to be fabricated out of the circumstances of life. He desires it to be a genuine suffering for the sake of Christ and a brokenness caused by a deep longing to be close to Him always. It's a longing that doesn't cripple you (because the truth is...you can't completely achieve that fullness here on earth), but drives you ever toward Him at a furious pace.

Broken,
Bruce

When God Ran

I know I haven’t posted “My Testimony - Part II” yet, but this is something that God put on my heart and I need to share. I’m sure most have heard the song, “When God Ran”, by Phillips, Craig and Dean, if not, it’s totally “off the hook” (if I can borrow a term from Curtis Marshall, blog love HERE). I love that song, it is such a great explanation of how much God desires for us to come home and how absolute His love for us is. Recently, I’ve been trying to learn and understand as much as possible about having a relationship with Jesus and listening to, then DOING what God wants and needs me to. I feel like I have 20 some years of learning to catch up on. One of the things God has been revealing to me lately is the love that He has for us.

I haven’t talked about it yet, but when God finally got my attention to go into ministry, I was in the shower. Then a few months later, at one of my life groups, one of the guys said God called him to do something, while he was in the shower. Today, God laid this on my heart…again, while I was in the shower. At the same life group another guy asked, “Why does it seem like lately God wants to have life changing conversations while people are showering.” I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but it got me thinking. God does his best work when we are at our weakest. When we are at our most broken, God is at his best. It’s at that point that many of us realize we can’t do it on our own, then we turn to God and he does amazing things. In line with that I think God gets the most talking in when we’re at our most vulnerable. At the point when we have nowhere to run to, God runs to us.

As far as the shower thing goes, when are more vulnerable than that? Think about any horror flick you’ve seen with a shower scene. That’s one of the WORST things you can do in a horror film (that and say, “I’ll be right back”). Anytime someone takes a shower and are attacked, they die. Now, I’m not saying that God wants to attack you in the shower, but what I am saying is that maybe, for some, God has been trying to tell you something for years and you’ve just ignored him. Maybe (I know this is my case), God has been chasing you around, trying to get you to listen and you run away, pretending not to hear him and giving any excuse you can think of when he does get close and whispers in your ear. Maybe when you’re at your most broken, God will corner you at your most vulnerable (for some it might be the shower, because you’re naked, have shampoo in your hair – shaving cream in my case – and you can’t run anywhere), then He’ll tell you exactly what you need, but don’t necessarily want to hear.

So the song chorus goes like this:

The Only time I ever saw Him run,

Was when He ran to me, He took me in His arms

Held my head to His chest, said "My son's come home again"

Lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes

With forgiveness in His voice He said,

"Son do you know I still love you?"

He caught me by surprise when God ran

Wow! Doesn’t God tell us that all the time? Doesn’t he rejoice, when His sons & daughters “come home again”? Unfortunately, some of never get to hear it, because we’d rather run away than run to Him. Why are so many of us suprised at the fact that God would run to us. Often times, we tell ourselves that we've done too much, that God could never forgive us and we're not worthy of God. Part of that is right, we're not worthy of God, but He still runs to us. That's how much we mean to Him, that's how much He loves us. The greatest example of God running to us, is when Jesus ran up that hill at Calvary. Now I know that Jesus did not actually run up the hill, in fact he had to have help to even carry His cross all the way to the top. But think about it for a second, at 33 years old would any of us be ready to die. Jesus only actively ministered for 3 years. Yes I know that for 30 years prior to that he ministered through the way he lived, but he only traveled and spread the Good News for three years prior to his death and resurrection. He could have very easily said, “I need way more than three years of ministry to spread my word and save people.” But he didn’t. At 33 years old he ran into the hands of the people that would betray him, beat him, mock him, spit on him and kill him. He didn’t run away, He ran to. Was he sacred? You bet, he even asked God to take that responsibility away from him if there was any other way. But there wasn’t. He knew the ONLY way to save all of us, wasn’t through walking around Judea and Samaria for 60 years. He knew he was on Earth long enough to commission his disciples to spread the Good News, then to run to the cross and provide a way for us to come home to him.

If God is willing to run to us, why are so many of us reluctant to run to him? That is where it is the responsibility of those that already know him, to show those who don’t the “road” down which He lives. Then God will see them walking down that road and He’ll run to them. God never said we need to cover some of that distance. We can’t, we’re not capable. That is why Jesus dying on that cross was essential. He covered the whole distance, he ran all the way to us.

When you finally understand how God ran (and continues to run) to you, it is such a humbling and breathtaking moment. So much so, that running to Him (not just when we’re in need, but all the time) becomes a deep desire and need. Proverbs 18:10 says, “The name of the Lord is a strong fortress; the godly run to him and are safe.” God has already run to us. But He also promises us that if we’ll run to Him, He’ll take care of us. He longs for us to run to Him, just as He runs to us. Isn’t it time to stop running away and run to Him?

Still Running to God,
Bruce