The Freedom of Brokenness...
I hear it catch in her throat ~ that familiar, quiet choking sound as emotion hits like waves on a beach during a storm drowning out all the other sounds of life. And you're relieved to hear the emotion because over the years you've learned that lack of emotion is a symptom of something dead in a spirit. So you sit and wait and just be WITH because what you've also learned down through your short history of brokenness on this Planet is that you don't have anything helpful to say in these moments. Not really. But you know your own brokenness and you aren't anxious because you know that He comes...He always comes to the broken in spirit and the ones who need a Hero. He always comes. So you wait...with. Emmanuel, God with us...He's attracted to our weakness.
Brokenness is something we're born with and something we fight against our whole lives because we know we weren't made to be broken. Something in us longs to be free...completely free and we know we were made to be whole and with Him.
I think it's becoming more and more apparent to me that I've spent a lot of my life striving to be fixed. Almost like I don't want to be a human on this planet, but I still want to live here and love here and be here. Trying to deny that I'm broken or hey, "Yeah, I'm broken; but not for long...I'm doing everything I can to get fixed!" like a fish getting ready to take flight. Striving has been like a virus I can't ever shake and unfortunately...this virus spreads.
Have you ever been with a group of Christians and felt so uncomfortable? Like you're being measured and found lacking? A lot?? And then have you ever been with non-Christians and you feel so accepted and welcome? At least until they learn you're a Christian? :) Yeah...what's the difference? One group thinks they're not broken and the other...they know they're broken.
When you live your life "as you should be" you'll raise children to be "as they should be" too. It happens deceptively...no secular music, no unsaved friends, distance from Christians who are broken, lots of morality, plenty of judging others. You can get there - "fixed" - if you can come up with all the ways you're not broken like others. You can get there if you're not even in the world...which is a lot different from being in it, but not of it.
But Jesus loves us too much to let us get "fixed"...He knows that what we really need is a revelation of our brokenness and a Savior over and over and over again. That's real freedom. Jesus with us...lifting the crushing weight and shattering the illusion that we're holding anything up.
And a beautiful thing happens when we realize that we're broken...compassion is born in our heart. Compassion isn't tolerance...and it's not ever grown from a place of figuring out the formula to perfection...compassion is what happens when you accept you're just as broken as the next person and you'll give your life for the other person to know His love ~ His grace. All of it free and without striving. A revelation that we're broken and we always will be and that He's not anxious or worried about it because He is Wholeness and Healing and He knows we never will be.
It gets trippy when Christians cheapen grace...it's cheapened by the thought that being a Christian is like getting married to Jesus, but living like cheating on Him is cool cause you'll just say "Sorry..." and it's all good. That's not real Grace - that's not marriage...that's worshiping yourself and all your desires. There's really no brokenness in there. Just like Christian's who have it all "together" and really grace isn't necessary...that cheapens grace too. They're worshiping themselves and all of their righteousness.
When you live like this I promise you - you're heart will break almost every day at those around you and how the weight of this world holds them and you down. Crushing you to pieces, but the Master keeping you together. That's the Good News - that's the news that a lot of us don't need because we're awesome mini-gods. But when you see Jesus in the other side of the yoke...holding almost all of the weight to keep it from crushing us...that reality of brokenness will stop you short. That kind of revelation changes your life.
When you have a right view of Jesus you can get a right view of yourself. And that's really painful for most Christians. Not so much for those who have just met Jesus. But sometimes what happens when we've been following Him a long while and we find freedom in areas and we start to feeling pretty good about ourselves. We stop asking Him what He wants us to do and doing whatever He says because we don't really need Him anymore...and when you live in this insulated kind of Christianity - minus risk (also called "foolishness") - you can start thinking you're pretty awesome. But what happens when you're really following Jesus is that his invitation to risk/faith reveals more brokenness and that dear reader will keep one in the right posture before the King...surrendered and humbled...because a broken person needs a Redeemer.
All day.
Every day.
For a lot of my friends they don't struggle with risking for Jesus in the ways we all think of...sacrificing for others, giving, counseling, feeding the hungry, leading, etc. But what would be terribly risky for them and me would be really resting in the love of the Father. The kind that doesn't have to do anything. So that when it's time that He actually asks you to do something you have something offer...a Savior...that's not you. ;)
Like a friend explained to me "We're made up of a soul/body/spirit. Our soul responds to the needs around us - the hungry need food, the poor need clothes, the bad marriage needs counsel and we go and respond to those needs. And the spirit - it's made to hear Jesus and do whatever He says...even if that's sitting on the porch drinking a cup of coffee. It's like the sheep and the goats. When He looks at the goats who have acted out of their souls and not their spirits He says 'I don't know you...I never went and did those things with you. You have to leave me now.'"
Wow.
So my prayer over this past season has been that I will always embrace my brokenness and the realization that all my efforts at being good are like a vapor in the wind...they're nothing. I never want to lose the compassion I feel for others when I sit back into needing a Savior just to get out of bed and walk through the day because the weight of the world is so much. I just want to love Him, love others and hear Him and do whatever He says. And that - y'all - that's the only way to live...the only kind of life worth living anyway. ;)
I think it's becoming more and more apparent to me that I've spent a lot of my life striving to be fixed. Almost like I don't want to be a human on this planet, but I still want to live here and love here and be here. Trying to deny that I'm broken or hey, "Yeah, I'm broken; but not for long...I'm doing everything I can to get fixed!" like a fish getting ready to take flight. Striving has been like a virus I can't ever shake and unfortunately...this virus spreads.
Have you ever been with a group of Christians and felt so uncomfortable? Like you're being measured and found lacking? A lot?? And then have you ever been with non-Christians and you feel so accepted and welcome? At least until they learn you're a Christian? :) Yeah...what's the difference? One group thinks they're not broken and the other...they know they're broken.
"Come wounded, frightened, angry,
empty and I'll meet you where you live,
not as you should be,
cause you're never going to be as you should be."
Brennan Manning
When you live your life "as you should be" you'll raise children to be "as they should be" too. It happens deceptively...no secular music, no unsaved friends, distance from Christians who are broken, lots of morality, plenty of judging others. You can get there - "fixed" - if you can come up with all the ways you're not broken like others. You can get there if you're not even in the world...which is a lot different from being in it, but not of it.
But Jesus loves us too much to let us get "fixed"...He knows that what we really need is a revelation of our brokenness and a Savior over and over and over again. That's real freedom. Jesus with us...lifting the crushing weight and shattering the illusion that we're holding anything up.And a beautiful thing happens when we realize that we're broken...compassion is born in our heart. Compassion isn't tolerance...and it's not ever grown from a place of figuring out the formula to perfection...compassion is what happens when you accept you're just as broken as the next person and you'll give your life for the other person to know His love ~ His grace. All of it free and without striving. A revelation that we're broken and we always will be and that He's not anxious or worried about it because He is Wholeness and Healing and He knows we never will be.
It gets trippy when Christians cheapen grace...it's cheapened by the thought that being a Christian is like getting married to Jesus, but living like cheating on Him is cool cause you'll just say "Sorry..." and it's all good. That's not real Grace - that's not marriage...that's worshiping yourself and all your desires. There's really no brokenness in there. Just like Christian's who have it all "together" and really grace isn't necessary...that cheapens grace too. They're worshiping themselves and all of their righteousness.
What I'm talking about is a broken piece of pottery held together by the Master.
When you have a right view of Jesus you can get a right view of yourself. And that's really painful for most Christians. Not so much for those who have just met Jesus. But sometimes what happens when we've been following Him a long while and we find freedom in areas and we start to feeling pretty good about ourselves. We stop asking Him what He wants us to do and doing whatever He says because we don't really need Him anymore...and when you live in this insulated kind of Christianity - minus risk (also called "foolishness") - you can start thinking you're pretty awesome. But what happens when you're really following Jesus is that his invitation to risk/faith reveals more brokenness and that dear reader will keep one in the right posture before the King...surrendered and humbled...because a broken person needs a Redeemer.
All day.
Every day.
For a lot of my friends they don't struggle with risking for Jesus in the ways we all think of...sacrificing for others, giving, counseling, feeding the hungry, leading, etc. But what would be terribly risky for them and me would be really resting in the love of the Father. The kind that doesn't have to do anything. So that when it's time that He actually asks you to do something you have something offer...a Savior...that's not you. ;)
Like a friend explained to me "We're made up of a soul/body/spirit. Our soul responds to the needs around us - the hungry need food, the poor need clothes, the bad marriage needs counsel and we go and respond to those needs. And the spirit - it's made to hear Jesus and do whatever He says...even if that's sitting on the porch drinking a cup of coffee. It's like the sheep and the goats. When He looks at the goats who have acted out of their souls and not their spirits He says 'I don't know you...I never went and did those things with you. You have to leave me now.'"
Wow.
So my prayer over this past season has been that I will always embrace my brokenness and the realization that all my efforts at being good are like a vapor in the wind...they're nothing. I never want to lose the compassion I feel for others when I sit back into needing a Savior just to get out of bed and walk through the day because the weight of the world is so much. I just want to love Him, love others and hear Him and do whatever He says. And that - y'all - that's the only way to live...the only kind of life worth living anyway. ;)
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