Brokenness part II

It's day two of my three day series and to be honest I'm still struggling with the concept of brokenness. I've actually been struggling so much that I've been at my computer for over two hours and I've thoroughly checked my facebook, twitter, instagram, and pintrest for the first time in days! I've also only written these three sentences you've read so far...

Therefore, I'm going jump right into the scripture because whenever you're in a place of confusion and complication the scripture is a good place to start. Yesterday's golden scripture was "a glad heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken" (Proverbs 15:13). I found it quite fitting to start today with Psalm 51 which says that "[the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow... " (vs.17 AMP). 

To begin to explain the significance of this verse I have to begin by talking about what it means to have an acceptable sacrifice for God. The key word here is ACCEPTABLE. I read the Old Testament last year for the first time (for the class I almost failed -- if you remember that blog entry) and the books in the Old Testament are literally full of unbelievable events. Moreover, one of the things people did in the Old Testament was make animal sacrifices to God. People back then, much like people today, were imperfect. Being imperfect was bad because God can only be in relationship with people if they don't have imperfections (because He is perfect; this didn't cause God to separate Himself from His people but by being imperfect His people ultimately built a wall between themselves and God). God really loved his people though, so He told them to sacrifice perfect animals. Because those animals were perfect (i.e. without blemish)  they would cover the imperfections of the people so that the people could once again be in relationship with God. (Sidenote: we no longer have to sacrifice animals because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice who died for all of us and all our "imperfections", how awesome is that!?). Therefore, when we look at Psalm 51 through the Old Testament lens, the sacrifice ACCEPTABLE to God now has a greater depth to it. The only sacrifices that are acceptable to God are those that are perfect, without blemish, full, and complete; and still, the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit and a contrite heart (vs.17). 

To define "sacrifice" better, this is considered to be an act of adoration, worship, atonement, prayer, surrender, and faith. We sacrifice to God because we believe He has something better for us than whatever it is we're giving up. On that note, sacrifice always costs us something, even when it's a broken spirit and a contrite heart. However, no matter how costly our sacrifices may be, there's beauty in the broken sacrifice. Our lives are infinitely higher with our broken hearts placed in God's hands than any half, calloused, or broken-heart we could have here on earth. Although we may believe that we are losing something in a sacrifice we are gaining something worth more than gold. Our broken spirit becomes something glowing, refined, radiant, pure, and beautiful. Our earthly brokenness is replaced by a heavenly wholeness.

Therefore, I think that when we experience any form of sorrow or heartbreak (and don't let anyone but yourself define what these things mean to you) we are left with a broken spirit and a contrite heart.  Within the first few weeks of my diagnosis I began to realize how very much more broken I really was. In retrospect, it was as if my physical body was representing the state of my spiritual humanity. I had an illness inside of me, which the very definition of it caused me to feel like a damaged human; on top of that, the treatment itself was causing me to feel like a shattered human. I felt like a porcelain vase that fell off a cupboard and cracked and in an attempt to fix it someone took a jackhammer to it. Having a broken spirit began to have new meaning in my life. 

Brokenness is interesting to think about as an acceptable sacrifice because we would never go to the store and buy something that was broken. Nor would we ever keep an appliance or utensil that was broken -- it would be useless. When we think of our spiritual brokenness we sometimes believe that because we are "broken" God will see us as if we're expendable. Despite what we may believe about ourselves, God doesn't see our "brokenness" as worthless or valueless; He sees it as an acceptable sacrifice, to Him it's perfect. Therefore, I don't believe anyone should ever feel worthless, insufficient, or unimportant (but broken is a different story). I know I was always broken, I honestly think we all are. And you know what? The beauty that's found in this brokenness shows me that brokenness isn't necessarily bad. Yesterday I wrote about the healing that can come when we grieve our losses and cry out to God. Today I get to proclaim that when we acknowledge our brokenness and sacrifice it to God not only will we experience healing but we will be able to find ourselves in a deeper relationship with God. We no longer have to live defined by the things that brought us sorrow or made us broken. We can sacrifice our brokenness to God, and in doing so grow closer to Him. We can trade in our lives of shattered pieces for a whole life, with a hope to one day be used by Him.

to be continued...