elisabeth elliot

Broken and Spilled Out

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I think every single believer will at some point go through a breaking process. It will feel like our lives have been irreparably shattered into a million little pieces that can never be put back together in any semblance of order. It will feel like the end, but for God it will only just be the beginning.

To be broken means that God can use our lives, our very selves, to minister to many more than we could have dreamed of had we remained whole. Most likely, we would have remained self-reliant, self-seeking, self-focused, never really acknowledging our deep need for God.

To be broken is to come to the place where the only way you can look is up. And that’s where you find God and realize He’s the one who was looking for you first. He’s the one who made the first move to make you right with Him. You only chose God because He chose you first.

The beautiful part with God’s blessings in terms of baskets of bread and fish is that there is always more than enough. There will always be an overabundance. Not only did all the 5,000 (and with the addition of women and children closer to 15,000 or more) get fully satisfied with food, but there were twelve baskets left over, one for each disciple. One tangible reminder of God’s more-than-enough favor for each of those disciples to carry with him.

Remember your life is being broken for a purpose beyond yourself and anything you could dream or imagine. God is up to something good.

Feeding the Multitudes: Inspired by Tonight’s Kairos Message

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Jesus said something that struck me as a bit odd during the account of the first feeding of the 5,000. When the disciples asked how they were to feed all the multitudes who had followed Jesus, Jesus said to them, “You feed them.”

On the surface, it seems strange that Jesus should ask such a monumental task of 12 men to feed what probably amounted to 20,000 people (counting women and children). Why would Jesus ask that?

I think what Jesus wanted was their willingness to sacrifice whatever they held in their hands for the work of Jesus. In this case, it was two fishes and five loaves given to them by a small boy. It was at the same time a sacrifice and a confession of woeful inadequacy.

That was what Jesus blessed and multiplied to minister to the many.

In this day and age, many of us are praying for peace. We ask that Jesus step in and make peace by bringing unity to the racial tensions and strife.

Jesus says to us in turn, “You go and make peace.”

“How?” we ask.

“What do you have in your hand?” Jesus asks us.

“Not much. Not nearly enough to accomplish reconciliation. But whatever I have is Yours. I give it to You.”

What Jesus is looking for in us isn’t extraordinary ability but unconditional availability. What He asks from us isn’t great acts or passionate speeches. What He asks for from us is our very selves.

That’s where the miracle begins.

 

Seeds

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“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction” (Cynthia Occelli).

“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal” (John 12:24-25).

“If my life is broken when given to Jesus; it is because pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will only satisfy only a little lad” (Elisabeth Elliot).

“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in” (Leonard Cohen).

Only God can take brokenness and make it beautiful.

The old saying goes that broken pieces make the best stained glass windows, and I believe that broken lives are the ones God uses to shine through most brightly.

Will you hide your brokenness in shame or will you let it be your testimony of how God’s strength is perfected in weakness?

 

 

Broken and Shared

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A friend of mine wrote these words: “Unless grapes and grain are broken there will be no bread and wine. Unless the broken are shared there will be no communion.”

Elisabeth Elliot wrote, “If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it may be because pieces will feed a multitude when a loaf would satisfy only a little boy.”

Sometimes, in order for God to use me, I have to be broken before I can be shared.

No, I take that back. EVERY time God gets ready to use me He starts first by breaking me. Every single time.

I don’t mean every time I completely fall apart and lose every possession and wind up destitute. I mean usually a dream of mine dies. Or a friend lets me down. Or I find myself overwhelmed by life.

It’s the day to day stuff that I stumble over most often. The big crises find me more calm and trusting in God’s strength and provision. But the small details get to me.

Dying to self isn’t always as grand and dramatic as taking a bullet for someone you love. It means dying a thousand times in a thousand small ways every day. It means dying to self-rights, to pride, to vanity, to my own way of seeing and doing things. Those are the hard deaths.

If you are going through brokenness, take comfort in this. God will bless so many more with your broken life than He could with your perfect life. Everything you’ve lost, God will restore a thousand fold, in the lives of a thousand people who find the hope of God’s provision in your story of ruin and redemption.

I still don’t like pain. I don’t like discomfort or inconvenience. I get impatient in front of the microwave, for crying out loud.

But I trust God’s leading. I trust His heart more than my own feelings, my own perceived need for comfort and safety and calm. Trusting that the bridge built with planks of thanksgiving and joy will hold up until I get all the way Home.

Dangerous Prayers

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Tonight at Kairos, Aaron Bryant taught about one of the most dangerous prayers you can pray: Lord, take me. Lord, I surrender to You.

I know from experience some of the most dangerous prayers I’ve prayed have been when I asked for patience and when I prayed, “Thy will be done.”

The joke is that you should never pray for patience unless you want what little patience you already have to be supremely tested. If you do pray for patience, you will find out just how impatient you really are. God will bring people into your life that bring out the worst in you and put you in situations that make you wanna cuss. But in all of that, God is slowly changing you so that you are slightly more patient today than you were a week ago.

I’ve found that when you pray, “Thy will be done,” you are also praying, “My will be undone.” I learned that from one of the wisest women and authors I have ever come across, Elisabeth Elliot. To pray, “Thy will be done,” means I am willing to let go of some cherished dreams and plans and goals if they aren’t a part of God’s will. It means to have desires denied and longings go unfulfilled sometimes, but it means that for every thing I give up, I gain something 1000 times better.

Still, the hardest prayer right now for me to pray is, “Lord, I surrender.” Even now there’s a fear that God isn’t really for me and won’t do what’s best for me if I give up control. There’s the illusion that my plans really are better than God’s plans.

Ultimately, I only have to look back at my life to see those aren’t true at all. God has never been anything but good to me. God has always been for me and God has never ever done anything less than the very best for me.

I guess as long as I have my old nature still hanging around and my self-will still battling for control, surrender will never be an easy thing to do. But to borrow a quote from the Soul Surfer movie, right now I don’t want easy; I just want possible.