The Spiritual Celebration of Brokenness

For some reason God is having me reflect on the spirituality of brokenness as of late. It is an interesting concept and I have been learning a lot about celebrating the spirituality of brokenness. Brokenness is something as humans we are all to familiar with. But because of God’s grace we are able to celebrate brokenness. Brokenness is a voluntary surrender to God’s will over our own will. Being broken can be something that happens to us, but it can also be something we allow to happen in us. For in the broken areas of our lives Jesus can fill us with himself.

There is an interesting pattern that happens whenever Jesus begins a meal, lets see if you can pick up on it. If you have time (I hope you do) read through the following verses. Matthew 14:13-21 (Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand), Matthew 15:32-39 (Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand), Matthew 26:26-30 (The Last Supper), and finally Luke 24:13-35 (The Road to Emmaus).

The pattern and the words used over and over again in these four stories are “take”, “bless”, “BREAK”, and “give”. Once we have been taken and blessed we must submit to become broken before we can be given. This is beautiful and so conforming to hear because I cannot help my sinfulness, I cannot help my brokenness. It is what I decide to do with my broken state that makes all the difference. When we are broken we have two choices; (1) we can become more angry or more proud, or (2) we can be more peaceful and serve others.

Isaiah 53 says, “It is by His wounds we are healed.” God heals our brokenness! So submitting to your brokenness is the crucial step to living God’s will for your life. (or God’s will for His life that you are living, because your life isn’t really yours, its God’s.)

I will end with the verse I ended the parent email with this week. Romans 5: 6-8, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. In deed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

(P.S. most of the ideas here are not mine. As I said God has been almost forcing me to learn about the spirituality of brokenness. This has been a compilation of a few sermons I have heard recently and ideas from one of the best books I have read in the last year. It is called “Simple Spirituality: Learning to see God in a Broken World” by Christopher Heuertz. I would highly recommend this book to you. It is also a book that you all should have in your personal libraries. haha. Seriously though. It is good!)