Brokenness
It isn’t fair – life just isn’t fair! We have dreams, we have aspirations and often they come to nothing. It starts well but then unravels. We think we’ve met the right person but it comes to nothing. The promotion we should have had, the career we expected to have had. But no, we keep encountering emptiness and brokenness. Why can’t God keep His promises and give us what we want?
At various times we all have feelings like these and for some of us it is more often. Our lives can often be painful and we have this dreadful sensation of brokenness: joy seeps out of our lives like water from a leaky bucket. But how ever empty we feel, we must remember that our hope is in Christ. Our brokenness is nothing to the brokenness that Christ experienced on the cross. All the pain we feel, Christ has already felt. God does not stand idly by: in Christ He has shared our humanity and our anguish. Our problems are a valuable source of learning and they change us. Some of us learn humility and others learn empathy for others. Our difficulties can become sources of strength for others if we remember that Christ is always with us and supports us through the bad times.
However, brokenness is just a temporary condition. Christ experienced brokenness upon the cross but this led to our redemption on Easter day. God’s business is wholeness, not brokenness, and one of the mysteries of faith is how God can turn our broken lives into wholeness and fullness. God does keep His promises and He gives us what we need when we turn to Him.
David Bradshaw
February 2008