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You Will Be Broken!
Gary Walters is one of my mentors. (He will become the President of the Evangelical Covenant Church later this summer.)
When Amy and I were about to start the church, he told us that he had one promise for us…
We sat on the edge of our seats waiting for his words of encouragement! Maybe he’d say:
“God is going to do so much through you!”
“God is going to bless your ministry!”
“You are going to touch thousands of lives.”
Instead, as if God were speaking directly to us, Gary said, “You will be broken.”
What?! What kind of promise is that?
Gary must be a prophet of God. This week we’ll talk about brokenness.
How is God breaking you?
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Everything I try to do falls apart…
I have the Midas touch in reverse lately…
I have to depend solely on His Grace, where once I depended completely on my sheer will and determination…
I heard the words from a popular song in my head… “sweetly broken, holy surrender”…
I don’t know everything… and I am A-OK w/ that!
I break by God showing me daily that he is the ONLY thing that I need but I cling too much to what this life has to offer! NO THING OR PERSON can ever or will ever take His place! Sometimes he takes things or people away to show me how much I need to get back to basics and put Him first.
I can’t do anything good in my own strength…
I can’t minister to my students the way they need without Him continually guiding me…
I can’t seem to get past my own distrust and believe that He’s got my life under control…
I can’t even get out of bed without some kind of TRUTH empowering me…
I can’t function without constant communion with Him…
I’m breaking… it hurts. But I’m learning that brokeness pushes us to God. So He allows it. He encourages it. He wants it.
He broke me & made me realize I couldn’t live the Christian life on my own. A quote from Henry Blackaby spoke to me while God was breaking me:
“All a leader can do is submit. We try to be more committed when God wants us to be submitted.”
Chad from Catalyst sent me your DVD from this past year & it spoke to me again. When I heard it then, God was breaking me to get off my can & allow Him to work & quit trying to run my own life.
As a ministry leader I’m just constantly reminded of how selfish I am. The times when I’m stressed out, not leading well, things are shaky - they’re more often than not times I’ve drifted from ministry being about honoring God and more about my own ideas and preferences.
There are too many examples to cite. But in the past two years I sincerely feel like I came to the end of myself. There was nothing left and the “idol” that ministry can become in our lives was smashed for me. I realized how weak I truly am and also how much I sometimes depended on ministry for love and acceptance. (ha!) I was in a very difficult place and after much soul searching had to come to the place where I was willing to surrender even being in ministry if that was God’s will for me. It apparently wasn’t but I serve now a bit wiser and a lot more humble and compassionate. And as someone else said, I know now there are so many things I simply do not know and cannot explain and I am willing to admit that. Through all of the wrestling and tears, God did give me peace.
God spoke to me in the midst of all of the trials our church went through recently and gave me the picture of a seed buried in the hard, dry, sunbaked ground, struggling to grow. He simply said, “It is your tears and prayers and heartache that soften and break up the hard ground. You cannot grow without the hard places in life.” This word picture may most aptly describe the last two years especially of my life as a minister. My constant prayer is for God to use the pain for His glory.
The more I minister the more dumbfounded I am that He works through me. While I make every attempt to walk in integrity, I still know the “uglies” that go on inside me. And I just don’t like it.
I absolutely love and hate brokenness…all at the same time. Does that make sense?
My body is breaking down. I am losing muscle mass and strength and the doctors that I have seen do not know why. I look forward to seeing how God will use this.
I am a pastor of church plant and the following event took place during our first year.
This past September - a prime time for a new church (less than a year old at the time) to see growth. I was geared up and ready to see great things. Only to end up in the hospital - not my idea of good timing and to top it off I ended up there early on a Sunday morning. On the way to the hospital I called a friend who I knew would preach for me that day. So things were in my control or so I thought.
When the doctors examined me they let me know that things didn’t look good and that surgery was likely the only option. Later that day the surgeon visited me and I informed her that I planned to have the surgery asap and be back to my church by the next Sunday. She just smiled at me and let me know things wouldn’t work that quick.
Little did I know I would spend 4 weeks in the hospital because of complications after my surgery. How could this be good timing and right timing. This brand new church needed me - things would fall apart without me. (at least that’s what I thought).
God broke me and reminded me that this new church was not my church, it was his church. I learned that God works even when I’m on my back - surprise surprise. He took care of his church. We celebrated year one on Sunday - God has grown this church and yes he has used me and so many, but it is his church. I look back now and see so clearly - that through my time of suffering God reshaped an area of my life.
By NOT showing up with all the hosts of heaven in glory and power on the nights I really think He’s going to.
God is breaking me through my family. I LOVE my family! My wife and three awesome kids. If I spend all my time on the church and the people, I have no more time left for my family! They need me right now more than ever and loosing them is NOT an option. Please pray for us that God would continue to grow in us together. I don’t know if this makes sense, but that’s how I’m broken!
When you say Broken this verse comes to my mind immediately and keeps me grounded.
“When I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10
Oh man, can we ever relate to that! I think you guys were fortunate to have been TOLD that from the get-go!
My husband Chris and I are still in the VERY EARLY stages of our church plant, yet we have experienced some serious brokenness over the last month or so. But we know that God is ultimately in charge, and HE knows what He is doing, even when we don’t. We know are broken in order to spill out all the “mess” so that we can be restored and filled with HIM! That doesn’t always make it easier, but it does give us hope! Please pray for us, and Revolution Church of Florence, SC. We truly want to see our city turned upside down for Jesus!!
Funny thing in our church plant we just started using Lifechurch.tv OPEN and I had the same thing told to me be a mentor. He said to be prepared that when i think I have it figured out God will do something different.
Being broken is letting go of what I want to have happen every week and surrendering to what God will have happen. In spite of me he continues to bring people each week. He continues to change hearts and change me and my family.
Being committed to Christ don’t you think you have to just accept that you will continually be broken?
Thanks Craig. BTW…we started Hostage yesterday and everyone kinda freaked when you drank the poison and crushed the light bulb! Everyone cracked up at the out takes though! It was a great visual for the series. I thought it was awesome. Thanks for everything you guys do!
This is huge. I feel like my life is on a rhythm - there’s breaking and healing, breaking and healing, breaking and healing.
It’s funny because I’ve prayed that God would break me, and as soon as it started, I prayed for the healing to start.
I don’t pray for it much anymore, but I try to embrace it when it comes.
God has broken me of pride, prejudice and pity so that I might truly love, embrace and enjoy ‘the poor’ … a call to the inner-city was not something I would have chosen - lots of things, in me, had to break. Loving the poor cannot be done through the occasional gesture of goodwill, we must live among them and treasure them as our personal friends. God is with the poor… it’s where I want to be.
“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” Psalm 34:18.
My marriage has broken me of thinking that I’m a pretty humble guy.
One more thing. I think that in the brokenness, we come to a place of humility and staying on our face before God, desiring only what HE wants and desiring only to please Him. Brokenness kills our egos. (which means it must happen again and again)
My oldest son left home just over a year ago and I thought it was time to drop out of ministry. God has shown me much since then. I have seen God respond to the prayers of His people when it comes to my son and I have seen God work through me in spite of my failures and set backs. I have often joked that the ministry I serve in as one of the leaders would only succeed if God worked through my weaknesses and this Past Easter I saw God work and it is so humbling to me and yet at the same time Amazing.
I know broken. A few months ago I was still living the pseudo-broken life…but today, I know what broken is.
Humbled, dependent, desperate, no answers, thirsty for God, wondering if God hears me, it feels like I am living in a Psalm…
Maybe broken is only found when consumed with God…
I have actually been contemplating brokenness for a few weeks now. Here is something I sent to myself on my cell phone…
Broken -
When you break something, many times it does not heal or mend properly on it’s own. For example, a broken finger or a flower pot. In an effort to correct the anomoly, sometimes the object has to be re-broken. This can be a painful process, but it is necessary for true healing. We may look on that which has previouly “healed” and say, “Well, maybe it’s not perfect, but it will do for now.”
Are we missing something better; something more complete? Is there something in me that needs to be re-broken?
I am so glad this came along and let me know others are thinking of being broken. I have kept this all to myself for a while, waiting and wondering if this was just something between me and God…
I guess not
charis…
Go has been reminding me lately that He does the work THROUGH ME, I don’t do the work FOR HIM…
It is a sobering and comforting thought, but also terrifying, because at m core, like the rest of humanity, I am a control freak, and sometimes it is harder than others to just let go…
College ministry is an interesting and different venue, one where you can not take things personally…not a sudden drop in attendance (I’m talking 30 people easily from week to week), and not the sudden disappearance of a young person that you have empowered and are counting on…
God is in control, He is constantly reminding me of that, and breaking me away from relying on charisma and ability…
I am broken everytime I try to do something on my own. This seems to happen all too often though. God shows me that all I need is Him.
When I have been broken and I am really ready to be used by God, I realize through scripture or mostly someone who is spiritually farther down the road than I am, that I AINT EVEN CLOSE.
i wish I could say that brokenness was a one-time thing. Man, don’t I wish! But I believe it is an on-going process that God uses when He needs to remind us Who this is really all about. I went through burnout, losing a job, serving a church that was old and dying…all different stages of the breaking process. He is not done yet I am sure. Each one has brought me pain but also gain (that old saying applies). I don’t wish them on anybody but at the same time I can see why God brought me to and through them.
Sorry to be so late in getting in on this topic. I spent a good part of Monday at the hospital seeing both life and death. One lady has cancer but a very peaceful spirit about her and will soon be in hospice. At the same time our youth/worship pastor’s wife gave birth to an almost 10 pound baby.
God’s definitely breaking my heart for people, particularly little people who need HIM, or children with special needs, who don’t m=normally have a place to go and be a part in church. More than anything else–for those who don’t KNOW the LOVE of GOD!!! Broken and ready to do something!
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I moved to Texas in August and since I moved here I have asked God to break me and he said your not ready yet. I would ask again and he would say your still not ready yet. I came home from a mission trip, a couple of weeks ago, and was on this total spiritual high. Surely enough three days into being home, I broke me down. But I am so thankful for being broken, because it has taught me to lean on the father so much more.
I don’t believe that it’s God who actually breaks us… I think we do a pretty good job of breaking ourselves. It is God, however, who makes something beautiful out of our brokenness.
Wow… in so many ways. But, I think, being a relatively new pastor (Mosaic DC is a little over a year old), God has really been breaking me in terms of PATIENTLY WAITING ON HIM. There are just things, of course, of which I absolutely have no control… I can’t manipulate… I can’t orchestrate… I can only wait. And it’s difficult, because I want to see results… NOW!