Broken and Blessed

One of the most difficult things to face in our walk of faith is that God allows us to be broken. In those times when our lives are falling apart and we’ve lost the strength to carry on, we struggle to make sense of our suffering. God, in all His wisdom, knows that, just like wheat, we cannot be used until we have been sifted. Our faith is a process, and first, it must be broken, so that God can use us fully. He breaks every part of our lives that keeps us from Him and He bears the heavy weight of our burden, if we’ll stop struggling with our circumstances and allow Him to carry us through. But, it’s in the process where we can lose sight of what God is doing, and our faith may fail if we’re not fully aware of His sovereign, omnipotent ways.

God breaks us or allows us to be broken because He loves us. Not too often do we hear someone say, “I grew deeply in my faith and closer to God when my life was going smoothly.” It appears evident, by countless testimonies, that God is mostly found in the valleys of life. If we can stop looking at our troubles as punishment and start seeing them as opportunities to encounter God, we would find greater peace in the trials of life. Our brokenness sheds light on our pride; when we’re broken and only pieces of us remain, God is able to show us more of His power through our total dependence on Him. Without our desperation, we’d never know our need for God and we’d never seek Him for a miracle. His love wants to draw us nearer to Him.

God sets limits on our brokenness. God knows the areas of our lives that need work. And although He must break us or allow us to be broken, He never leaves us and will never allow us to endure more than our spirit can endure. God knows we can go so much further in our faith than we ever thought we could . . . and He wants us to be full of faith. God will set the length of time for our brokenness, and He chooses the tools that He’ll use to work within our lives. God knows exactly what He needs to accomplish through our brokenness and He loves us enough to sit patiently through the process as His work is done.

God knows when to pick up the broken pieces. God is fully aware of the pain and suffering we are enduring through our times of brokenness, and He will not allow that time to break our will or damage our spirit in a way that would keep us from living out our purposes for Him. God is only after our resistant will. He wants to eliminate any rebellion in our heart that would try to find shelter from God’s omniscience. We can’t hide our hearts from God and He loves us enough to expose the parts that need breaking in order that we might be made whole.

God is after one thing, as He works through the broken places of our lives—a steadfast faith that isn’t altered by our circumstances. He wants us to understand that He is not a lesser God according to our trials of life. His purpose in brokenness is to bring us into an intimate relationship with Him. It’s through brokenness that we learn to lift God up in our lives and rely on His grace through the work of the Cross. It’s God’s work in us, through our brokenness, that will bring us to a place where our faith is not focused on what we think God “should” do in our situations of life, but trusts and waits, fully confident that He will bring about victory as we find our peace in Him.

If you’ve found yourself in a broken place, know that God knows the blessing behind it all. The longer we wait, and the greater the patience, the more wonderful will be the joy. You can trust that God is not only with you, He is for you, and His victory is assured through every battle. It’s your brokenness what will make you more whole than you ever perceived you were . . . through your faith, you’ll find yourself, broken and blessed.