Broken Bread
We can never really know grace until we have been brought to the place of our own weakness.
Until we see through tear-stained eyes.
Until brokenness has become what we are and what we live.
Because until we are broken, we can't be healed.
Until we see how sick we are, we won't drink the medicine that can save us from terminal soul-sickness.
Until we know that we cannot trust ourselves, and the only trustworthy place is the place at the foot of a bloody cross.
Strength and personal success are hinderances to the walk of faith, to the walk of humility, to knowing Him fully; because we can't know His strength until we know we are weak.
The question is do we yet know it?
Do we know how to live dependently on Christ and Christ alone?
Or do we only know how to trust our instincts, our gifts, talents and abilities, our treasures of security and safety?
Oh, how I fight with absolution everything that makes me appear weak, broken, less-than.
I want to be strong, I want to look like things are handled in this messy life of six kids and homeschooling and ministry and life.
But really this beautiful mess is the sanctuary where God has ordained me to learn the beauty of brokenness. That I can finally arrive at the place of weakness and find that His grace is indeed sufficient.
My biggest problem in life is that I've been way too competent.
Too able to pull myself up by my bootstraps, too able to look like I've got this thing handled. But I don't. Not at all.
And brokenness is bread, and I am the eater, and I've eaten and it is good.
It is good because it is the food of grace. The all sufficient grace that changes us.
We want to handle it ourselves instead of experiencing the holy, the treading of ground brought under bending knees and seeing our own smallness.
I want comfort and ease. For myself and for my children. But that is not the path that leads to grace.
Because we can't see grace until we've eaten brokenness. We can't experience His sustaining power in the storm if the sun never stops shining.
Do we really know His grace or do we just know the little world we've made for ourselves to keep everything tidy and clean, where kids always behave and no one ever dies, and the sun, well it keeps on shining in that little world.
But in His world it rains. Sometimes it floods. And we think we will be swept away in the current, overwhelmed. But then we see that He is the Lord of the rain, and the flood, and He who holds us can never let us go.
And that Rock can never be overwhelmed.
And so, like Paul, we say, I will boast all the more about my weaknesses that the power of Christ will rest on me.
Let it rest on me.
Until we see through tear-stained eyes.
Until brokenness has become what we are and what we live.
Because until we are broken, we can't be healed.
Until we see how sick we are, we won't drink the medicine that can save us from terminal soul-sickness.
Until we know that we cannot trust ourselves, and the only trustworthy place is the place at the foot of a bloody cross.
Strength and personal success are hinderances to the walk of faith, to the walk of humility, to knowing Him fully; because we can't know His strength until we know we are weak.
The question is do we yet know it?
Do we know how to live dependently on Christ and Christ alone?
Or do we only know how to trust our instincts, our gifts, talents and abilities, our treasures of security and safety?
Oh, how I fight with absolution everything that makes me appear weak, broken, less-than.
I want to be strong, I want to look like things are handled in this messy life of six kids and homeschooling and ministry and life.
But really this beautiful mess is the sanctuary where God has ordained me to learn the beauty of brokenness. That I can finally arrive at the place of weakness and find that His grace is indeed sufficient.
My biggest problem in life is that I've been way too competent.
Too able to pull myself up by my bootstraps, too able to look like I've got this thing handled. But I don't. Not at all.
And brokenness is bread, and I am the eater, and I've eaten and it is good.
It is good because it is the food of grace. The all sufficient grace that changes us.
We want to handle it ourselves instead of experiencing the holy, the treading of ground brought under bending knees and seeing our own smallness.
I want comfort and ease. For myself and for my children. But that is not the path that leads to grace.
Because we can't see grace until we've eaten brokenness. We can't experience His sustaining power in the storm if the sun never stops shining.
Do we really know His grace or do we just know the little world we've made for ourselves to keep everything tidy and clean, where kids always behave and no one ever dies, and the sun, well it keeps on shining in that little world.
But in His world it rains. Sometimes it floods. And we think we will be swept away in the current, overwhelmed. But then we see that He is the Lord of the rain, and the flood, and He who holds us can never let us go.
And that Rock can never be overwhelmed.
And so, like Paul, we say, I will boast all the more about my weaknesses that the power of Christ will rest on me.
Let it rest on me.
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