The Blessing Of Brokenness

Today is the National Day of Prayer and many people today will pray for unity, but I will pray for brokenness.  I will pray for God to break us, because then, and only then, will our unity truly be God-glorifying and utterly submitted to His will.  I will pray for God to break us, because if He breaks us then we will not have to pray for unity, because we will be irresistibly drawn together through our brokenness.  I fear that if we pray for anything other than for God to break us, we will only continue to vainly apply a Band-Aid over a gushing wound.  We must be broken.  We must cease striving and sit broken at His feet, in the ashes of our own efforts.  There must be nothing left of us and we must have nothing left but God.

We often refer to the account in Scripture at Genesis Chapter 32 as Jacob wrestling with God.  But Jacob didn't wrestle God, God wrestled Jacob.  And He wrestled with Jacob until He finally broke Him.  Jacob was returning to the land of his birth, fearful that his brother Esau would take his life if he dared show his face in the Promised Land again after swindling him out of his birthright.  As Jacob neared the Promised Land, he sent all he had ahead of him to appease Esau.  First he sent his cattle, then he sent his servants, then he sent his wives and children, then he sent all of his possessions, then Scripture tells us "Jacob was left alone" (Gen 32:24).  It was here, when Jacob was alone and had no earthly possessions left, that God took hold of him and finished the job-- completely emptying Jacob of himself. 

Scripture tells us that when God "... saw that He could not overpower [Jacob], He touched the socket of Jacob's hip" and Jacob was broken (Gen 32:25).  God wrestled with Jacob and could not get Jacob to let go.  Despite the wrestling, Jacob's faith was not overpowered.  Despite the struggle, Jacob would not succumb to discouragement and let go of his hope in God.  It was in this place of brokenness that Jacob became intimately acquainted with Who God really is, "because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared" (Gen 32:30).  Which is why even when God told Jacob, "Let Me go, for it is daybreak," Jacob said, "I will not let You go unless You bless me" (Gen 32:26).  Because Jacob had been broken and had become intimately acquainted with Who God really is, he was able to say, "Not only will I never let You go, but I believe that no matter what my circumstances are, Your love for me is true and You will bless me with Your eternal presence." It is the kind of faith that can only come when God breaks us so He can get to what's inside. 

In one of the multiple, parallel accounts of Mary anointing Jesus' head and feet with costly perfume, Scripture tells us that she broke the jar (Mark 14:3).  It wasn't the jar that was valuable, but what was inside.  The jar had to be broken because what was truly valuable was inside of it.  If the jar had not been broken, then the sweet smell of the perfume could have never been released.  If the jar had never been broken, then the anointing could not have taken place.  The sweetest fragrance of fellowship we can have with Christ comes only through brokenness, and there is a certain level of anointing that cannot take place unless our vessel is broken.  It was in the breaking of Christ's body that the sweet fragrance of eternal life was released.  

Christ had no possessions, He had been utterly abandoned by His friends, He had nothing left, and then God finished the job-- completely emptying Christ of Himself through death on the cross.   When Jacob wrestled with God, he was broken, because that is what happens with you wrestle with God.  When you wrestle with God you must break.  God breaks us so He can finish the job and reshape us into our new identity in Him.  God gave Jacob his new identity and said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome" (Gen 32:28).  God allows us to struggle because He wants to break us.  Because He knows that it is only in this place-- the place in which we have nothing left-- that we become intimately acquainted with Who He really is.

"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to cling to, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross." (Phil 2:5-8)

"Then Jesus told His disciples, 'If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.'" (Matt 16:24,25)

"The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, O God." (Ps 51:17)

"'Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and because you humbled yourself before Me, tore your clothes and wept before Me, I truly have heard you,' declares the Lord." (2 Chron 34:27)