Brokenness Is The Pathway To Usefulness

Brokenness Is The Pathway To Usefulness

Jesus took a loaf of bread and asked God’s blessing on it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it and eat it, for this is my body.” –Matthew 26:26

Putting up Christmas lights at our house has not always been marked by holiday mirth. We would plug in the lights and sure enough, one or two bulbs would be broken so the whole string wouldn’t work. The time-consuming quest to find and replace the offending bulb generated large amounts of crankiness. So we developed a new policy at our house to ensure domestic tranquility. If a string of lights doesn’t work, we simply put it in the trash and pull out a new, never-used set purchased at last year’s post-Christmas clearance sale. Joy to the world!

In this world, when something is broken, we throw it away and consider it useless. But in God’s economy, brokenness is not cause for being cast aside. It is our brokenness that actually makes us useful. In fact, brokenness is required in order to be pleasing to God. “The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit,” David wrote (Psalm 51:17). If brokenness makes us useful and pleasing to God, what does it mean to be broken? Do we qualify if our hearts are broken by the hurts of life?

The truth is, you can be brokenhearted and not be broken. You can experience a breakdown of your health, the breakup of a marriage, broken dreams, and broken promises and not become a broken person in the process. Brokenness is not the automatic result of experiencing deep hurts. Brokenness is a lifestyle of agreeing with God about the true condition of our hearts. It is shattering our self-will so that the life of Jesus might spill out of our lives. It is continually responding to conviction in humility and obedience.

Jesus said that if a grain of wheat does not fall into the ground and if its outer shell is not broken, it does not produce a harvest. He was speaking of his own brokenness, the brokenness of his body that would demonstrate his supreme usefulness in the work of salvation. Jesus has shown us what it means to be broken and to be used by God in painful but beautiful ways. Do you want to simply be brokenhearted and broken down, or do you want to be truly broken before God and thereby useful to him?

Broken Savior, used by God, as I remember your body, broken for me, I begin to see my heart the way you do, and I fall in brokenness and repentance before you. Use me in my brokenness as only you can.

DIGGING DEEPER