Living "Fixed" instead of Being Broken

Why do we want to live the façade of a life “fixed” instead of admitting our brokenness?Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way… We’re all broken.

All of us.

Each and every one of us.

Every single one of us.

The Bible clearly teaches us that ALL have sinned. That means me, you, the sweet little grandma figure you idolize, and every one in between.

We’re in shambles. We’re just not right. We’re broken.

Growing up, I used to think I had the perfect life, the perfect family, the perfect everything…. I must have been God’s favorite or something because it was really ridiculous how perfect my life was.

Or seemed. How perfect my life seemed.

There’s a world of difference between what “was” and what “seemed” to be so.

Now, I’m not negating the fact that God extra-blessed my with a huge family full of wonderful people that do love Him, but let me set the record straight. We’re not perfect, and it took me a lot of grown-up years to figure that out.

But the problem is this: it’s not just my family. If yours is made up of people, yours isn’t perfect either. None of ours is.

And you wanna know another secret? We’re horrible about hiding it.

We grow up in church, Sunday after Sunday, and pretend we’re all okay. Pretend we’re all “fixed.” We all got saved when we were six-and-a-half or rededicated our lives at a throw-your-stick-in-the-camp-fire service, and no one seems to need Jesus anymore. We’ve got it all together on our very own little lonesome.

No one wants to be broken, or even appear to be broken. But several years of Sunday smiles and plenty of potlucks later, we’re still desperately broken people. In case you didn’t know it already, God didn’t send his Son Jesus to come and die for the church person who didn’t need anything more than a second helping of potato salad.

He died for the sinners amongst us, which is, ALL of us. We’re broken. We’re frail. We need Him. Every day and every minute within each day He gifts us with.

The church oftentimes teaches us how not to mess up because that’s intolerable, but God’s message is quite the anti-thesis. He’s whisper-shouting to us all that WHEN we mess up (not IF we mess up), when we go against His will and perfect plan for our lives, and when we sin against His Holy Name, that His love is greater still.

This does not give us a license to sin more and more, but an opportunity to see how very ridiculously broken we are before Him.

How very much we need Him.

How very much we should not be able to do anything else but love Him with all the moments of our dear-little-lives in return.

How we all need to stop living and acting like we’re already “fixed” and perfect, when really we need to come to the realization that we’re all broken.

And we do have a God Who specializes in redeeming brokenness.

I wonder what would happen if we all embraced the true reality that our “perfection” is an arch-enemy to God’s redemption.

I wonder what would happen if we all acknowledged that (collectively and individually) we’re broken, we still need Jesus (desperately so).

I wonder what would happen if we stopped playing games in church services and began helping one another truly learn how to love Him more in light of His love for our brokenness…

The Wonder-full Life

The Wonder-full Life

I’m not even two days into my break from school for the summertime and my relief from all duties related to classroom teaching for quite-the-while, and what to I find myself doing? That’s right. I’m teaching. Only this time, I’m teaching myself new things.

As a modification to the old saying goes, “You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but you can’t take the lessons out of the teacher.” Ok, so that isn’t a modification to an old saying. I pretty much made it up on the spot. It’s only thirty seconds old. You’re welcome. Old or new sayings aside, it’s true that the lessons a teacher-at-heart gives and shares oftentimes extend far beyond the classroom walls and go on to embracing, altering, and inspiring another soul for the long haul.

Just two days ago, I became decidedly anxious to learn about all-things-domestic that I don’t yet know about (which I’m learning is pretty much everything). Cooking. Cleaning. Sewing. Building and crafting things for the house. And the list could go on and on. Immediately upon the dawn of my curiosity and anxiousness to learn all-things-domestic, do you know what I discovered?

I discovered this:

Life, like this, is wonderful. And it’s wonder-full. There are so many things I don’t know, but will soon learn. There is much to be mastered and much to be learned from things I can’t and won’t ever master. Life is a give and take of trial and error. There’s so many things to know and learn and see and do. I can’t possibly take it all in at once, else it overwhelms me for the negative instead of inspires me for the positive.

But life isn’t only this wonder-full in the domestic realm. I would argue that it’s like that in every realm of life. (At least in every aspect we give a chance to prove full of wonder, we shall soon see that life indeed is wonderful.)

Don’t believe me? Let’s try this aspect of life on for size: Relationships. Every person you know is full of wonder, curiosities, inspirations, ideas, dreams, successes, failures, stories of each, and lessons to be learned of both and all. Every person who chooses to enter a relationship with you, be it family members, co-workers, dear friends, acquaintances, or what have you, creates with you another mystery (the mystery of relating and relationship-forming). And guess what? It’s also uniquely full of wonder.

To bring it further home, Jeff and I are at a beautiful point in our relationship. We are just so very much in love. In two weeks, we will be married and will forever live upon this Earth as God intended us to be, as man and wife. There’s so much we’ve yet to learn and experience. Successes and failures will soon come knocking on our door, begging for our time, energy, heart’s affections, and the very essence of who we are going to be as a couple. My life as Mrs. Hazard, with my sweet, good man Mr. Jeff Hazard right by my side, will be filled of so much wonder. I pray I never lose the wonder of this beautiful blessing of relationship.

(Throughout my few days spent at home this week, my mind has been reeling with so many different aspects of life that are filled with wonder and are truly wonderful, but I’ll spare you of all of my inner thoughts. For now.)

Another, more eternal aspect of life that is indeed wonder-full is God’s grace. Talk about something I’ll never know the full depths of or understand the details and motives behind, and we’ll quickly get to the areas of God’s love and His grace. Worship band Passion recently produced an album entitled, “Take It All.” On it is a song by Matt Redman called “Mercy.” One of my favorite lyrics appears in the chorus, and it goes like this:

     “May I never lose the wonder,

      oh, the wonder

      of Your mercy.

      May I sing your Hallelujah.

      Hallelujah, Amen.”

If you’d like to explore the song in full detail, here it is for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z98MK1aqyg

In all my ramblings today, the bottom line is this: Life is full of wonder, and when I really sit back and ponder God’s grace, I realize that all in this life is undeserved. He doesn’t have to do for me what He does. Beyond exempting me from eternal punishment in Hell through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, on the cross, He increasingly blesses me ever-so-much and ever-so-daily with things like relationships and love and housework and various opportunities for growth. The very things I sometimes complain about, get caught up in, and discard as commonplace or unwanted.  Those are His gifts to me. Those are evidences of His mercy in my life. Why I complain about His gifts of little-daily-disguised-mercies, I’ll never know. But I do know this: this life that’s so full of wonder is wonderful indeed.

Today, make a list of the wonderful things in your life.

And decidedly determine to never lose the wonder it all.

The "Grape Lollipop" God

 

When I was younger, my siblings and I very quickly learned which errands to go on with my mom and which errands to run far away from. The one errand in particular I want to share with you this morning is when my mom would go up to the bank. Now, I don’t believe this bank is in business any longer; but back in the 90s, my mom would go to the drive-through teller at Barnett Bank. Whenever you went to the drive-up teller at Barnett Bank, they would give out lollipops to the kids in the car, which is probably while they’re no longer in business today because the Hill kids depleted them of their lollipops back in the 1990s.
 

But seriously, mom would pack all of us in the car, she’d talk with the bank teller, she’d get her envelope full of money, and they’d ask how many kids were in the car… she’d say 5. They’d say “send back some of the money to cover the cost of all those lollipops, lady.” No just kidding. But on those bank errands, everything was fine. Things went surprisingly well. There were 5 of us kids, and 5 lollipops. Everyone got one. No one fought over the flavor they got. All was well in the world, and all was well in the back of the Hill family station wagon as we began to drive away. Everyone was happy. And everyone was thankful. EXCEPT ME.

If I happened to get the purple lollipop, otherwise known as the grape-flavored lollipop, I would pitch a royal fit. I would complain. Though my mom would try to console me, and say, “Rosemary, they didn’t have to give you anything. Be thankful for what you do have,” it didn’t work. And I would pout. I would make myself and everyone in the car absolutely miserable. I would say things like, “I don’t want this. Why are they giving me this. How come they didn’t give this to someone else?”

Now, I share that story with you today because even though it was a long time ago ,and it was very childish of me and is somewhat embarrassing to share with you, I realize now that the people at the bank gave me something out of the kindness of their hearts. My mom was right. They didn’t have to give me anything, but they gave it to me because they meant it for my good. After all, what child does not like candy? What could have been and should have been a sweet ending to a story was turned completely upside and sour because of me. The problem was not in what was given; rather, in the reaction to what was given. What was going on around me didn’t agree with what was going on inside of me.

Bringing it closer to home for all of us….
 

Now I tell you that story to tell you this: even as an adult, I sometimes wrongfully view God as the “grape-lollipop” God.

And what I mean by that is: anything and everything God gives us aside from salvation is already too much. Salvation in itself it way more than any of us deserve.

God gives us things in life. Just like the bank gave my mom all those lollipops out of the kindness of their hearts, God gives us things out of the goodness of Who He is and the kindness of His heart. If it’s something that is difficult or hard times or something I didn’t plan on, I start to complain. I begin to gripe and I become a very unpleasant person. Or, better put, I should say I don’t “become” an unpleasant person; rather, the unpleasant things stored up in my heart towards that circumstance or situation come to the surface through my words, attitudes, and actions.

There have been a lot of unpleasant or unplanned things in my life this year.

And I’ve seen that this year in my life, but as I take a step back and look at it all, I realize that God has entrusted difficult times into my life because He intends them for my good. He has shown me a lot this year. Just through the sheer amount of students and parents and interpersonal relationships, the pressure of teaching Bible (yes, from an academic standpoint, it seems easy… but the Bible warns in the book of James that not many should become teachers of the Word of God… and this year I’ve realized why. because we are held to a stricter judgment… I’ve felt that this year.) God has really shown me a lot of things, personally this year. There’s a lot of things in my life this year that I can readily label and say “grape lollipop,” “grape lollipop.”

“I don’t want this. God, why are you giving me this?”

As I reflect back on that story, I realize that the same little girl that complained all the way home from the bank is still very alive and well inside of me. Now today, it may not be purple or grape-flavored lollipops, but it disguises itself. It morphs itself. It tricks me into thinking it’s new obstacles to overcome, when truly it’s just the same obstacle over and over again that is hiding behind a new mask.

Let’s see if you can relate. Your “purple lollipop” today may be….

the things in life I don’t plan on.

the things I don’t sign up for.

the disappointments.

the struggles.

the sufferings.

the difficult times.

Your grape lollipop this year may not just have a shade and color and flavor.

It may have a first, middle, and last initial.

It may have an email address.

It may have taken your peace of mind.

And stolen your sanity.

It may have jaded your attitude.

Remember whatever your “grape lollipops” this year have been and whatever my grape lollipops have been this year, God has given us those things for our good.

The verse I want to share with you today is 1 Peter 5:10:

"And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you."

The Bible has a lot in general to say about suffering or difficult times:

Paul said that we should not count it as something strange that happened to us.

James says to “count it all joy” when you fall into various trials.

Jesus Himself says, “In the world you will have trouble…. I have overcome the world.”

“We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us so.”

Remember:

God loves us. He entrusts us with suffering and difficult times because He knows the Jesus inside of us can handle it.

So, next time you’re handed a “grape lollipop” in life, know that God intends it for your good. And He will be using it as He sees fit in your life.