Brokenness

I have experienced pain… not just physical on a small scale, but emotional. Pain reminds me that I am human- that I have emotions in abundance- that life is real. Whether caused by self or by someone else- pain can be humbling.

I find myself walking through the stings of a painful heart and I am reminded of my brokenness.

To feel broken

It is hard to explain but it is exactly where God want us to be just prior to His wings of salvation engulfing you.

How sweet the sound of brokenness is to Him

I was reading in John 12 about the seed…vs24 “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, then it produces many seeds.”

To break off layers of pride, selfishness, & self-trust is how spiritual power grows. When a seed is planted & begins to cultivate within the soil, it begins to open and shed its outer layers for the inside to begin to root & blossom into what it is designed to be.

The same is true for us.

“The flesh must be broken so the Spirit of God in you can surface. Your old patterns of thinking and acting have to be broken so that the real power can emerge. The term broken heart does not mean sadness. It means a soul whose self-life has been exposed and its held broken by the Spirit’s power.”

This is an ongoing process.

 As I am learning this over again, I am reminded that “true brokenness is losing all faith in your own abilities, abandoning dependence on human resources, and disavowing all outward pretensions of righteousness to cling to the Spirit of God as if to a lifeline.”

God loves a broken & contrite heart- because He can work with it.

My reading then takes me to Jeremiah 4:3… “break up your unplowed ground.”

Ouch!

As I read it, I knew things were about to hurt. Fighting with God about allowing Him to break up my unplowed ground was not a fight I was willing to win. I knew I had to break, or spend each day with a tormented heart, which was way worse!

So I yielded.

Then as He began to plow, He reminded me of Matthew 13:3-9… “Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. He scattered some across the field- some landed on the footpath & the birds came to eat them; others fell on shallow soil with underlying rock & spouted quickly but did not have deep roots; some fell among the thorns which chocked them out; but others fell on fertile soil where they produced a crop that was 30, 60, & 100 times as much as had been planted.”

He was reminding me where He wanted me to be & what He had for me. I had to allow Him to plow the soil of my heart & life- so He could give me 100 times more than I could imagine.

“A seed is just a seed & will remain nothing but a seed until it is placed in the proper environment.”

There was no more rationalizing my actions or thoughts; no more managing or manipulating or forcing things into the mold of my expectations. I could not fight it anymore. I relinquished to He who knows me better than I know myself- my Creator, my Abba.  

I will continue to walk through my pain & emotions- with a broken heart & head held high, eyes fixed on Jesus, so that He may create in me a clean heart- a heart fertile enough to produce a harvest for my King.

Oh that He loves me enough to spend so much time & never giving up on me. Thank You Lord.