Gracefully broken.
It’s what we need. It’s what we must have to not get caught up in our own power. It’s what we must have to be reminded of where our strength comes from and where our strength can only come from.
Gracefully broken, that is what has happened to me, and I pray will continue to happen to me. I need to be gracefully broken. If I am not, I will continue over and over again to try to rely on my own strength and my own ability to have joy, peace, and satisfaction.
And from personal experience, joy, peace, and satisfaction is the last thing you will have when you rely on yourself. When you think that you are capable of these things and you begin to seek them out by yourself, you’re going to dig yourself into a deep hole. You are not going to know how to get out because everywhere you turn is just darkness.
Over a years ago, I started digging this hole. I am not exactly sure how it began. I have a few ideas and it could be everything all together, but at some point, I started relying on my own abilities and not Gods. I started going off my own strength. If you have ever tried that before, it does not work out well. Because when you rely on your own strength, you’re going to fail… over and over and over again. Then this catastrophic snowball effect takes place. You slowly start to feel incapable of doing certain things. For me these certain things were all related to being a “good Christian.”
As I began to dig my hole, I was digging further and further from God. The more I dug the less connected I felt and the less I felt I knew of His gospel. I barely knew Him anymore and I felt incapable of talking about Him to others because I did not even know how. I was scared. So scared that I would get put into a conversation about God and have no idea what to say.
For those who don’t know, this is crazy for me. I love God and I love talking about God. It my favorite thing in the entire world. So how did I get to this point? And that was my question for so long. How could I, who was once so close to God and had gained so much knowledge of the gospel, just one day know nothing? The answer is because I kept digging that hole of self-strength of wanting to be able to provide for myself with no other help. I thought I was capable, and I wanted to be capable.
It’s a lonely place to be there. Especially, when you are someone like me who does not want anyone at all knowing about a single weak spot of your life. I struggle and I have always struggled with being open and letting people in when I am struggling. So, nobody knew. I felt alone. I really felt lonely when not even God was beside me. (Obviously He was and always is, but when you have dug yourself into a hole, surrounded by darkness, YES, you feel like not even God is with you).
That was where I was and where I have been for way too long. I never stopped going to church, I never stopped listening to my JC jams. Yes, I am sure people noticed that I haven’t been my upbeat high-spirited self. But I am assuming I was good at covering that up too, because nobody asked me if something was wrong.
When you dig yourself this far into a hole, ironically you cannot get out on your own. If you are trying to rely on your own strength and your own ability, then you really are in some big trouble. How am I supposed to get out? I tried praying and I tried reading my bible here and there and I would sometimes gain an inch closer to the top of this hole, but I couldn’t get out. I was still very much stuck. Because I was still relying so much on my own ability. My thoughts and my intentions were “I am going to read and pray today so that I can feel better and so I can help myself out of this hole.” Instead of, “God I can’t do this on my own. Please forgive me for trying, but I need you to take this from me. I need you to get me out of this hole through your strength and your strength alone.”
When I finally realized that this was enough. That I had to go to God, and I had to give this weight and burden that I have gained from seeking out my own abilities, my prayer was to be gracefully broken.
I first had to repent. I repented of trying to do everything on my own. I repented of relying on my own self strength, I repented of causing a break in our relationship. Then I asked God to break me. To literally break me to the point I cannot rely on myself to keep going. And that happened.
This might sound wild to some people, like why on earth 1. why would you ask God to break you? 2. Why would God want to break you?? Isn’t that the opposite of what’s supposed to happen?
The answer is God breaks you with grace. Grace is the undeserved gift of redemption through Jesus Christ. So, when God breaks you, He breaks you with grace. He breaks you to the point of realization that all your sin past, present, and future are forgiven by the blood of Jesus. And if we have faith in Him, we have access to endless amounts of grace.
I was, PRAISE GOD, gracefully broken. God directed me to 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.”
Sufficient means: enough, adequate. So, God’s grace is enough for me. That is all I need. God’s grace gives me life, provides for me, and gives me strength.
God’s power is literally perfected by my weakness. (Please note earlier, where I do not want anyone to know my weakness… not even God)
But literally, His power is perfected in MY weakness. His power is completed in my WEAKNESS. This made me realize that I must give up myself 100% because even if I try to leave 1% of my own strength, this is going to affect the perfection of His strength. It’s going to allow my sin to seep in and alter His strength within me.
I do not know about you… but I want the whole thing. I want God 100% to have His completed strength within me. I do not want even 1% of my own ability to stand in the way of that. As, I realized this during my gracefully broken moment, I realized I have to surrender it ALL to Him.
That is how and the only way how I got out of the hole. I had to stop looking around me, because that was only darkness. I had to look up, to the Father. I had to repent. I had to be gracefully broken. When I fully surrendered it all to Him, He so gracefully and mercifully removed me from the hole. He completely removed the darkness I was so enclosed around.
That’s the beauty of God. He waits for you. He so patiently and lovingly waits for you to run back to Him. When you do, He is arms wide open. The warmth you get from running back to God, the feeling you get knowing that you are in the presence of God, that God is literally holding you in His arms. That is the most freeing feeling you will ever obtain on this side of earth.
So today, I feel free. I feel forgiven. I feel His unending amounts of grace washing over me.
-H
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