Undone

This morning I was reading from my Blue Book, the devotional I’ve been using since Freshman year of college. (If you have not heard of one of the Brummett’s discuss the Blue Book, please call the Knoxville Young Life office right now and order one for yourself.) It is very neat that I’ve done this devotional for the past four years at different points, and each time I begin the Blue Book again new light is shed. Yes, I have done this weeks emphasis multiple times but each time, God uses it to speak to me in a new way. This weeks emphasis was “Undone.” As I began the chapter, I re-read over my notes that I had made the summer of 2008. The summer of 2008 was hands down the summer my life became 100%, totally, completely, unashamedly “undone.” It was the summer I realized the beauty in my brokenness. Since that summer, my life has never been the same. I no longer am content with the status quo. I no longer was content with the “typical” college experience or with acting like I should not care with the problems with the world. Since that moment, I was not comfortable with being content in doing half-ass works for the Kingdom. Since that summer, I was no longer content with acting like I had it all together. I realized in that summer we are all broken, and it is in admitting, believing, and living in and through our brokenness that God uses us.

One of my favorite readings for reflection from the “Undone” chapter is by Thomas Merton where he states, “Indeed, when we understand the true nature of His love for us, we will prefer to come to Him poor and helpless. We will never be ashamed of our distress. Distress is to our advantage when we have nothing to seek but mercy. We can be glad of our helplessness when we really believe that His power is made perfect in our infirmity.” What a beautiful picture of the understanding of the love of God!! As I re-read this this morning, I realized that the reason God seems so much more powerful here is that the love of God is understood by these people here in the midst of their brokenness. The brokenness is easy to spot here: poverty, AIDS, substance abuse, domestic abuse, and hunger to name a few. Many people here, unlike us, don’t have masks to put on before God. They can’t hide behind their wealth, security, house, family, career, cars, designer clothes, and fancy vacations. All they have to offer is their brokenness to God who uses their brokenness to show His power and love for them. When they receive the love of God they receive it fully because they come before Him fully broken. Now, I am not saying that we first world Christians do not come to God broken. But, I believe it takes us a lot longer to get to the point of realizing our brokenness, owning it, living in it, and coming to God with it. We are taught to not be broken but to have it all together. Now, we are taught to come to God poor and broken when we accept Christ into our lives and that God accepts us just as we are. Which is 100% totally true. But, I think where we mess up is that we don’t realize the beauty and power in recognizing and living in our brokenness. For I know in my life, once I received Christ in my life as a child and growing up, I felt this sense that since I was a Christian I was no longer supposed to be broken after receiving the Holy Spirit. IN that moment of salvation God had changed me and made me a new creation. And because I was a new creation, brokenness just meant “weak Christian.” Maybe I heard sermons wrong and misinterpreted how people were living out their faith around me to get that assumption. But regardless, it wasn’t until the summer of 2008 when I came to God fully broken and undone and was ok to stay a broken vessel for the power of God to flow through and use that my life has been transformed on levels I could never even have imagined. That is the reality I see here: broken, undone vessels all around me that God uses to bring hope, love, and compassion to all we come in contact with. Perhaps helping be a part of the Kingdom of God in the here and now means exactly what Merton said: showing people the power of God amidst their brokenness and allowing ourselves to understand the love of God amidst our continued brokenness as we join together with broken lives being restored by God, being completely open to God as we are undone, and therefore fully allowing God to use us by His power and love.