Pursuing Brokenness

In life, we all have choices to make.

One of those choices is whether we will allow brokenness to make us beautiful or bitter.

I’ve seen both results in my own life — times when I changed for the better, and times when I allowed circumstances to harden my heart. In those moments, I chose anger, unforgiveness and bitterness to rule. I’m not proud of those choices, and I pray I’m making those types of choices less and less as I choose to trust the Heavenly Father with my life. When I allow Him to rule and reign, He can use brokenness to produce beautiful, godly fruit in my life.

Did it come at a cost? Absolutely! It has cost me everything, but that is exactly the position God wants to find us in. Completely dependent on Him for everything and surrendered to His will and His ways. When we give Him our all, though, He does not leave us empty-handed. In return, He lavishes us with amazing gifts and benefits.

Our brokenness produces LIFE and FRUIT.

In John 12:24-26, Jesus Himself tells us that a grain of wheat must be broken to produce life. Without brokenness the seed remains alone, but brokenness produces much fruit. What a promise! This wasn’t just a simple allegory to Jesus or some empty lesson from a textbook, but the foreshadowing of His own sacrifice. Not only that, but a call to follow Him in it. He invited us to follow His example by being willing to die to ourselves in order to truly live. Seeds, after all, were made to be broken.

I read once that, “For a seed to achieve its greatest expression it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” The world will not understand your need to stay broken and surrendered. They’ll see weakness in it instead of the security that it brings in knowing where our strength truly comes from.

Our brokenness produces WORSHIP.

There’s a story of a broken woman found in Luke 7:37-38. She is nameless, and the only title she holds is “sinner.” Whatever life she had lived, there is no doubt she was fully aware her title fit, and because of that, she recognized her need for Jesus. Social restraints would not hold her back from getting to Him and offering her brokenness at His feet. She offered her all.

In those tear-soaked moments, she lavished a love and worship on Jesus that was unrestrained. There was not even one distraction that would deter her gaze. This sinner had found a beautiful freedom in her brokenness. When is the last time you have felt that freedom? If you haven’t felt it in a while, or ever, let me encourage you to pursue brokenness as an act of worship. It could be at  the altar on a Sunday morning, in your car driving to work Monday morning or on your knees bedside. All you need is a willingness to get before Jesus and lay it all at His feet.

Our brokenness produces INTIMACY.

One of my favorite verses in Psalms tells us, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart.” In the moments where you feel most broken, God is there. He hasn’t left you, but stands with you in all of the grief and brokenness. That’s one of the most beautiful things about the God we serve. He isn’t afraid to come to us. In fact, He runs to us.

In your lonely moments, I pray that you would feel His presence in a very real way. I know it is in those moments that you need to know someone is there the most. I, too, have spent nights weeping into my pillow, so broken that I could barely form words. God was there in that moment and in that brokenness. And I know He’s there for you too, because His Word says He will be. He never breaks His word.

The defining characteristics of broken people are that they are humble and willing to admit their need for God.

We don’t need to run from our brokenness. We can embrace the broken life, knowing that it produces life, wholeness, worship and intimacy with our loving Father. It is a sacrifice that God desires of us.

There will be moments of pain and crisis, but that is where we can allow our brokenness to produce beauty.