This
week's 'thought' comes to
you from the book, "Holy Fools - Following Jesus With Reckless Abandon,"
authored by Matthew Woodley.It's a short but challenging read. The word of exhortation on the cover is true: "A spiritual jolt for when your respectable faith becomes deadly dull."
This selection has to do with power in brokenness. Enjoy.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
(2
Corinthians 12:9)
"Brokenness
doesn't just imply that I'm "damaged" because life has victimized me.
In the Christian story, my brokenness means that life has shattered me, but it
also means that I have contributed to my own brokenness -- and to the world's
brokenness. In other words, I'm not just a victim of life's gusts; I'm also a
rebel and fugitive.
Every
shattered piece of my life is still marked with the Master's beauty, but I'm
not whole. Whatever I am, I'm not what I was made to be. I'm in pieces. Stated
less delicately, I am, at least in part, a screwed-up human being.
And
it gets even worse, because according to the biblical story, I live in a broken
world. One of the central themes of the Christian story found in the
Bible is what theologians call 'the fall of man,' or 'total
depravity." Don't let the labels scare you. They just mean that
although we're glorious creatures made in the image of God, every human being
on this planet is also deeply flawed. Total depravity doesn't mean that every
part of me is as bad as it could be. It just means that all my attitudes,
actions, and even my deepest and most spiritual thoughts and aspirations are
bent and flawed toward sin...
This
concept of depravity sounds depressing, but it actually flows into the other
core element of brokenness: power. This power -- God's power -- has been
released into our powerlessness. When we look at our brokenness, we don't just
throw our hands in the air and say, 'I'm a total loser; I quit.' Not at
all. Brokenness also means finding strength in our weakness. It isn't just
being shattered; it's finding wholeness in Christ.
It's
interesting that the New Testament uses the Greek word 'dunamis,' or power,
forty-one times, but it's often combined with the word 'asthenia,' or weakness.
Power and weakness link together in an inseparable bond. God wants to share his
power with us. God longs to plant and cultivate real strength in us, but it
often grows in the soil of our weakness.
The
power of the powerless isn't a negative message. This God of power wants to
pour his strength into broken human recipients, empowering us to live with love
and courage, to enter into the mess of a frightening world, to forgive and be
forgiven, to face our own sin and darkness, to live with joy and thanksgiving,
to endure suffering. God is looking for people who will receive and then
display his power. And he will find them. But only the humble, the open,
the empty-handed, and the broken will receive his power. If he finds our hands
full, or our lives preoccupied with our own self-importance, he won't give us
what we don't want [or what we're convinced we don't need]...
I'll
never forget nearly twenty years ago when an Anglican priest named William laid
his hands on me and prayed for the strength of the Holy Spirit to fill me and
empower me. At that point in my life, I was so broken and weak. I felt inferior
and inadequate. But through an unlikely source -- William's touch and voice --
the living God spoke truth into my heart. As William prayed for power to
ignite my powerlessness, I had a clear image enter my mind: An oak tree had
just been planted in my heart. It was strong and true. It even felt solid
inside my chest. And I had the distinct impression that it would continue to
grow tall and straight. For twenty years it has been growing inside my soul
slowly (painfully so for others around me) settling into the core of my
identity. William's simple, daring prayer became my initiation into the power
of the powerless."
May
it be so for us as well. We don't have to be "fixed" to be used by
God. His power reveals itself most fully in our brokenness, weakness,
limitations, inadequacies, and powerlessness. Our prayer should not be,
"Make me strong." It should be, "Show Yourself
strong through me, weak as I am."
Have
a most blessed week reveling in the God whose grace is sufficient,
and chooses to use us in spite of ourselves, not because we've attained an
appropriate degree of "togetherness."
In
the Bonds of Christian Affection, Pastor Jeff
