Broken

Few things are as frustrating to me as when something I need is broken. For some reason things break a lot around me. Perhaps what is an even larger blow to my ego, my wife and kids seem to think I should be able to fix things. They bring me stuff all the time and say, “this is broken.” What goes unspoken is, “so fix it.”

But to be honest now days it is usually easier for me to just throw it away. If it can’t be repaired with Gorilla glue or Duct Tape then I might as well just toss it in the garbage. Even recycling things has become a huge chore. I have to pay someone to recycle my electronics! No, much easier to just toss it to the curb.

That is one of the things I find so fascinating about God; with him nothing seems to be too broken. In fact, sometimes it seems like the more broken someone is the more God is with them.  King David once even wrote, “The LORD is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18) That to me is an amazing statement. It is like those people you see who go through other peoples’ trash and find something worthwhile. Something to take home and to use.

So I know it is a good thing that God is not like me. He doesn’t look around at all the broken people and decide to just throw them out. He goes through the streets of this world picking broken people out of trash cans, out of dumpsters and out of landfills. He looks into the garbage of this world and he doesn’t see just the broken, angry, hurting confused, addicted, deceitful, selfish hearts. He sees more, something worthwhile.

But that is still not the most amazing part. God takes these broken people, but he doesn’t only wash them clean and nourish them and then put them on the shelf. No, he uses them again. Even though they’ve made mistakes. Even though they’ve failed. Even though they’ve been broken.

Actually I’ve found out that God uses me more when I’ve been broken. Because often times that is what it takes to get through to me. It takes a broken heart for me to feel the way God does. It takes a broken heart to feel for all the other broken hearts around me. It takes God picking me out of the dumpster, not because I am so shiny and perfect but because he is a God who “heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.” When God finds someone who is broken it is not the end but just the beginning.

II Corinthians 4:7-12