The Blessed Life, the Broken Life

The Blessed Life, the Broken Life

When I was younger, as the realities of life began to unfold and difficulties came my way, I assumed my life would eventually divide itself into two distinct phases: a period of brokenness followed by a period of blessing.

The first phase would be difficult. God would use it to teach me whatever I needed to learn. But eventually I would graduate. The brokenness would end, the blessing would begin, and—at least somewhere in the back of my mind—I assumed the blessing phase would pretty much last for the rest of my life.

But my assumptions hit a wall when I discovered:

This isn’t how the Christian life works.

Not Just a Phase

Jesus told His followers to take up their cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23). Daily doesn’t sound like a phase.

Neither do the lives of the people God used most powerfully in Scripture. Moses had to navigate one rebellion and gripe session after another, from the time he was 80 years old until the day he died. David’s elevation to the throne certainly did not end his suffering. And Paul described himself as “afflicted,” “perplexed,” “persecuted,” and “struck down” (2 Corinthians 4:8–9). In fact, God said early on that He would show Paul how much he must suffer for His name’s sake (Acts 9:16).

These weren’t merely unfortunate interruptions in otherwise blessed lives. Breaking and blessing usually coexist. This is why Peter tells believers not to be surprised by the fiery ordeal among them “as though some strange thing were happening” (1 Peter 4:12).

Early in my walk, I didn’t understand any of this. “This isn’t supposed to be happening, and it certainly isn’t supposed to continue to be happening,” I kept telling myself. But after much time receiving biblical truth, I came to understand:

Brokenness is not an event or even a phase.
It is part of a lifetime of following Christ.

God Is Chasing Us

This may sound strange, but I believe that God is chasing us—with a call to brokenness.

And I believe that this is why:

The breaking process does something success alone cannot do. It loosens our grip. It exposes our limitations. It teaches us dependence. And perhaps most importantly, it equips us to recognize and minister to brokenness in other people.

Here is the truth I have learned:

A broken world cannot be fixed by unbroken people.

God does not merely want to accomplish things through us. He intends to accomplish something in us that makes us fit to serve people whose lives have also been shattered.

But knowing that does not mean we will enjoy the process.

In fact, Scripture shows us something surprisingly different.

Sometimes Brokenness Begins With Resistance

Jeremiah knew what it was like to be carried somewhere he never wanted to go.

He had been called by God. He was doing what God told him to do. Yet obedience brought rejection, isolation, humiliation, and pain.

And Jeremiah did not always respond serenely.

At times he complained bitterly. He questioned God. In Jeremiah 20, he reaches the point of cursing the day of his birth. Elsewhere he asks why his pain seems perpetual and his wound incurable.

Jeremiah’s own story crystallizes a present reality many of us can relate to: Sometimes when God is breaking us, our first response is resistance. In this stage, we ask questions like:

Why is this happening?

Why won’t You stop it?

I did what You asked me to do. How did I end up here?

We can be tempted to think that asking those questions means we are failing spiritually. Jeremiah tells us otherwise. His complaints were not evidence that he had abandoned God. In fact, he kept bringing his complaints to God. Mark it down:

There is a profound difference between walking away from God and wrestling with God.

So if you are in a season of breaking and you are confused, angry, disappointed, or exhausted:

Don’t manufacture a response you haven’t reached yet.
Bring God the response you actually have.

Brokenness does not require pretending that we welcome what is breaking us.
But at the same time, Scripture does not leave us there.

Paul Shows Us Where Brokenness Can Lead

Paul had his own breaking experience—a “thorn in the flesh.” Whatever its precise nature, he didn’t want it. Three times he pleaded with the Lord to remove it. Think about that. The man who would eventually write some of Scripture’s greatest words about weakness began by asking God to make the weakness go away.

Then God answered him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). In this case, God answered, “Not this time. I have a higher purpose in mind.”

While Paul’s situation didn’t change, his interpretation of it did.

Had it been me, I would have seen it primarily as something preventing me from doing what God had called me to do. But God showed him that his weakness was actually the setting in which Christ’s power could rest upon him, in order to accomplish what he was called to do.

Realizing this, Paul says something astonishing: “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses.” He has moved from: “Take it away” to “I rejoice in what God is doing through it.”

This is transformative thinking. His whole outlook changed.

Sometimes God changes our circumstances. At other times, He changes our understanding of our circumstances. And sometimes that second miracle is the greater one.

Don’t Rush the Process

This has implications not only for the person being broken but also for those of us walking beside someone who is.

I once met a man as a chaplain at the courthouse. This man was being hit from several directions at once. He said to me, “My wife ran around on me, divorced me, and then I lost my job. I’m an elder in my church, and now I’m questioning everything!”

I told him:“Give yourself permission to be confused. I’ll walk with you through this.”

And that’s what I did.

Over the next several months, we exchanged emails and eventually talked by phone. Along the way, I tried to place signposts where he needed them and drop biblical truth into his life when and where he was ready to receive it.

Over time, something changed.

He softened. His interpretation of what was happening began to change. And eventually he reached a place I would never have demanded from him in our first conversation: He began to rejoice.

My job wasn’t to get him there quickly. My job was to walk with him while God got him there. This experience taught me something important about ministering to broken people:

We must not rush people to the conclusion God is still preparing them to reach.

Jeremiah warns us not to misinterpret the person who is still protesting.
Paul encourages us by illustrating that the phase of resistance is by no means end of the story.

Here is the main principle we must keep in mind when our friends are in the brokenness process:
When people are in Jeremiah’s shoes, we must not quote Paul at them.

There will be a time for Paul.

But first, these people need someone willing to sit with them in the Jeremiah-stage.

A good friend does not abandon us in Jeremiah because we haven’t reached Paul yet.

The Ministry of Walking With

This may be one of the gifts our own brokenness experiences eventually give to us.

Once we have been there ourselves, we become less frightened by another person’s questions. We don’t have to fix every emotion. We don’t have to explain everything God is doing. We don’t have to hurry someone through grief because his confusion makes us uncomfortable.

Instead, we learn to walk.

We listen.

We place signposts.

We offer biblical truth when it can illuminate the next few steps.

And we remain very careful about assuming that we know everything God is doing.

Our task may simply be to remain beside that person long enough for God to reinterpret the experience. That is something broken people are uniquely equipped to do. They recognize the terrain.

A Sower Went Forth to Sow

There is another thing brokenness eventually teaches us: so much is not up to us.

Think about the farmer in Jesus’ parable of the sower. He scatters the seed. Some lands on good soil. Some doesn’t. His assignment is remarkably simple:

A sower went forth to sow—not to grow.

Robert Schumann’s short piece The Happy Farmer captures something of the spirit I have in mind. It’s only one minute long. Just for fun, give it a quick listen!

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As I listen, I picture the farmer lightheartedly tossing seed as he goes: “I’ll throw some here, and some over there. Maybe it will grow; maybe it won’t. That’s not up to me. My job is to sow.”

And that is one of the surprising things brokenness can eventually produce in us: we become lighter.

We sow. God determines what happens beneath the soil.
We serve. God determines the results.
We speak when we should speak and remain silent when we should remain silent.
We faithfully do what has been given to us—and loosen our grip on what happens now or next.
In spite of our trials and weaknesses—no, because of them!—He is using us.
We just keep going and sowing.

Broken people can become amazingly cheerful people because they have finally discovered something enormously freeing:

It’s not up to me.

We don’t have to control everything.
We don’t have to understand.
We don’t have to make everything work.
We don’t even have to ensure that every seed we scatter grows.

We just have to sow.

There is enormous freedom in knowing this and living accordingly.

Life Through Death

Paul describes believers in 2 Corinthians 2:14–16 as carrying the fragrance of Christ—an aroma involving both death and life.

That had puzzled me because I had separated those two things.

First comes death.

Then comes life.

First brokenness.

Then blessing.

But Scripture keeps putting them together.

We carry the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested through us.
God brings life through death, strength through weakness, usefulness through brokenness.

The vessel does not become useful because it has finally graduated from being broken.

It becomes useful through the breaking.

And perhaps that is why the process repeats itself throughout our lives.

God is not finished with us.

And there will always be another broken person somewhere along the road who needs someone who recognizes the terrain.

If you’re experiencing a season of brokenness right now, begin by telling God exactly where you are. Don’t pretend to have reached Paul’s perspective if you’re still wrestling with Jeremiah’s questions. Ask God to show you what He wants to accomplish in you through this experience, and look for opportunities to encourage someone else along the way. You may discover that even while you’re being broken, God is already making you useful.

Blessed, Broken, and Useful

So where are you in the process? Perhaps you’re still with Jeremiah. You don’t understand. You don’t like it. Like Jeremiah, you may even be protesting to God.

Keep talking to Him.

You may eventually reach the place Paul reached, but don’t rush yourself there.

And don’t rush someone else there either.

Walk with them.

Listen.

Give biblical truth room to do its work.

And trust God with the timetable.

Because the great surprise of the Christian life is that brokenness and blessing were never two separate phases after all. In fact:

The broken life is the blessed life.

So pick yourself up.
Pick up your bag of seed.
And happy sowing.

What Do You Need to Hold More Loosely?
What is one area of your life where you need to remember, “My job is to sow, not to grow”—and leave the outcome more fully in God’s hands?