The Cross of Brokenness

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalms 51:17

When you hear the word brokenness, what comes to mind? When you think of going through it, living in it, and accepting your brokenness in your life how do you handle it? Do you want to run from it? Avoid it? Or accept it and walk through it? It would be safe to say a majority of people want to avoid it. Very few of us want to embrace the brokenness in our lives. We tend to avoid the hurts, pains, and disappointment that comes with life. All of us have a choice when it comes to a time of brokenness. That is when we must decide what to do when it comes upon us. We can blame others for it in our lives. We can run to sins that can become an addiction and pleasures to escape the hurt that is connected with our brokenness. We can also  blame God for it. When we do run from brokenness we also run from the One who has the power to help us through it. In my own life when I have ran from brokenness it has returned over and over again, because I didn’t learn from the experience. God desires for me to walk through it with Him, but I choose not to. I needed to accept the brokenness but also to embrace them.

I want to look at three things we can do with brokenness. First, what are the consequences when we run from brokenness. Second, what can we learn from from our brokenness. Third, how can we look to and depend on God in our time of brokenness.

Consequences may be a hard word to swallow when we think of the brokenness in our lives; some brokenness is not from our own doing. People hurt us, they use us and they leave us. They also disappoint us and unintentionally abandon us. So how can we use the word consequences with brokenness? Before I go any further let’s hold that thought for a moment. Let us also acknowledge that there is also brokenness that we cause. Through sins of selfishness, desires to protect us emotionally, hurting of others and keeping God at bay. One or another of these areas can cause our brokenness. Sometimes it can be a combination of both. We get hurt and disappointment and we give it back to them, whether it is intentionally or unintentionally. Hurt can be like a Ferris wheel that keeps going around and around. It doesn’t usually stop until one gets out, stopping the cycle of hurt and disappointment.

Now go back to the word consequences. We can suffer from the consequences of others hurting us or by our own consequences of our own self-centeredness. We can suffer from revenge, envy, strife, jealousy, abandoning others and abandoning our relationship with God. These all are consequences that we can and do suffer from. I do understand them from my own life experiences. However, these are not the consequences I want to discuss. I want to look at the consequences we have in our lives when we avoid our brokenness. Think about a time, and that time might be right now. How you didn’t face a broken time in your life. It may be a brokenness of emotions, brokenness of loss, or a brokenness of living without the love you need or desire in your life. Did avoiding such brokenness through busyness, avoidance of feeling the emotions, or running to someone, or something besides God for comfort really work? Maybe you don’t see brokenness in your life, or that you didn’t run from it, I am not saying that you have. Only God knows the truth, ask God to show you a time when you ran from the pain.

For years I ran from my brokenness in my life, not that I still don’t but in one area of my life I kept blaming others, blaming God and running to other pleasures to fill the emptiness. Emptiness is what brokenness brings us too, whether the emptiness is already there or it is filled with things that we use besides relationships with others, and our relationship with God. Brokenness in our lives brings this emptiness to the surface. It has always showed me how empty and bankrupt I truly am in my pursuit for things besides God. The reason I was made aware that it was a serious problem was I kept having this issue happen over and over. May be the word issue isn’t the right word to use, but the word lesson. God allows this lesson to happen to me over and over again. Every time the pain came up and the feelings of abandonment happened, I felt God gently say to me, “you’re the one running away.” I could feel my blood pressure rising and my fist clinching. Saying to Him, “It’s not me, it is them.” Even though I felt convicted in my spirit, I violently opposed the idea that it was me. Year after year I would be brought to the same point and never get past it. The relationships would end at the same point and I would place all the blame on them. God and I would have the same conversations over and over again. I would go through the same pain, the same hurt, and the same disappointment. So what did I do about it? I am sure you probably know. I avoided relationships all together. It was an easy way of avoiding the pain I had suffered before, the removal of the variable that I believed caused it. Did it work? Well I thought it did. So instead of disappointment, I traded it in for loneliness. Instead of hurt from others, I turned it in for the hurt of isolation. Instead of emotional pain, I swapped in for a loveless numbness. This went on for three years until one day, I found myself interested in someone. All those fears, expectations and desires came back which I taught I had covered up and concealed so well from myself. I was brought back to the same lesson once again. The “what if’s” ran wild in my mind. This will happen if we choose to cover anything up; it comes back even stronger than before. The difference this time was that I saw my brokenness and didn’t want to live in the same cycle anymore. Through the grace of God I finally admitted to God, “your right.” I am the one running, I run from you God and real relationships with others. It was as if I am in school failing the same grade over and over. I am put back to repeat it, and blaming the teacher for it. Now I am sick of it and want to learn how to pass. After many years of suffering from consequences of running from this brokenness I want to walk through it with God.

In no way am I saying I have figured it out on my own. Because I didn’t, God spoken to me through His Word, His Holy Spirit, experiences and friends. Think to yourself about the areas that you suffer from, that you desire relief from? Are you willing to accept the truth and the consequences of denying the cross of brokenness? Or will you with the help of God’s Holy Spirit ask for strength of picking up your cross of brokenness.