Day 4: A Contrite Heart

Nick, a current Multnomah student, shared his story this Monday night at one of my school's alternate chapels. He said several things that encouraged me and convicted me, but there was one particular thing that made me ache.

Good theologians live their theology, he shared. I'm not a good theologian. If I were a good theologian, I would pray for hours instead of getting on facebook. I would weep over my sin. I would . . .

I would weep over my sin.

weep.

And something inside of me grows fidgety.

Jesus knows . . . I struggle with this. I struggle with hating my sin.

I'm not good at looking it straight in the face and cursing it.

I would rather turn around and try to hop back into God's lap like a silly child who doesn't understand her own contradictions.

But I've prayed that I would hate my sin. And I want to . . . I really do.

I want to hate the way that pride creeps in and slaughters anything pure and kind in my actions.

I want to hate the way it has the potential to completely destroy my relationships with my friends and family and church and my effectiveness in loving people and loving God.

I want to hate each time I lie to people and tell 'em I'm doing fine or when I say that I will pray for you! and then [shamefully] forget, when I lie to people with my smile and my actions.

I want to hate each time I try to save people on my own and forget I am only creature. He is Creator. Savior.

I want to hate each moment when I speak of another person unkindly and when I kill someone in my mind with cruel, cruel thoughts.

I want to hate each conversation when I tell someone what they want to hear instead of the truth, when I rely on myself to speak and not listen to what Jesus wants to tell them or just how He wants to listen to them.

I want to hate each moment when I think I can do everything because the world relies on me, right? (Negative)

Another word for broken can be Contrite.

Dictionary.com puts life into that word when it describes contrite as that which is:
"caused by or showing sincere remorse, filled with a sense of guilt and the desire for atonement; penitent: a contrite sinner."

So today, my prayer is for this type of brokenness. I want to be broken by my sin, Lord. Completely penitent, remorseful, and repentent. I want to hate it, to see how You hate it, how it wrecks me and keeps my relationship with you from being what it could be. Is this the way I should pray?

Please, break me, Father.
I love You.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51:17

 

 

Day 3: Brokenness, Avenue to Healing

"Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days,


 in the day 
            when 
                the LORD binds up 
                                        the brokenness 
                                                    of his people, 
          and 
                               heals the wounds 
                                                inflicted by his blow."

Isaiah 30:26


Hosea 6:1-3
"Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.

After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.

Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth."


Wounded, torn, broken. Brokenness is His avenue to healing.

This is an "upside kingdom" that we operate in. It's crazy. Doesn't make sense. To live, we must die. To be healed, He breaks us.

So how does this affect my interpretation of my own brokenness? How should this affect the way I walk with my friends through their brokenness?

Mmm . . . to be revisited. :)

Day 2: Finding a New Meaning in Brokenness

I looked up "Broken" in BlueLetterBible.org (new.best.friend.),  and at least one of the Hebrew words that we translate as broken (the word "dakah") comes up 5 times in the Old Testament!

THIS IS SO EXCITING!!!!

I was starting to wonder as I thought about this topic if broken was just a "feeling/Christianese" word. I knew it was mentioned in the Bible, but I have been guilty of overusing it into a no-meaning, skeletal existence.

But there is meaning. And I'm getting hints that this meaning might change me.

I'll talk more about some of these verses later hopefully, but for now, I'll just leave ya with 'em. The words in the brackets are my attempt to try to fill us in on the context . . . think of them as commentary . . . sorta.

Psalm 10:10
The helpless are crushed [broken], sink down, and fall by his [the wicked man's] might.

Psalm 38:8
I am feeble and crushed [broken] [because of sin]; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

Psalm 44:19
[We have not done wrong] yet You have broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death.

Psalm 51:8
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken [because of my sin] rejoice.

Psalm 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken  and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

It's interesting that these verses are all in the Psalms. David knew brokenness well . . . may the God of this incredible man teach me something about it through this month. I've got a lot to learn.

Day 1: 31 Days of Brokenness

Sweet, sweet October. She is birthed into sunshine, and even in her baby stage, she sends me out on adventure.

Today begins the 31 day blogging adventure. I'm joining hundreds of women. We've picked different topics, and we're writing on them. Thirty-one days.

Last year, I wrote on Prayer and wow. What a life-changing gift. I brainstormed this year wondering what I could possibly write about for 31 days. I want a topic that will change me, something that could maybe impact others too. "Meaningful is most Memorable," somebody said once upon a time.

So, while I was brainstorming, brokenness came to mind amongst a lieu of random ideas. But I snagged on that one. Brokenness.

I'm not even sure what that means.

I have heard about Jesus' body being BROKEN Bread.

I've read about how the the Lord is near to those with BROKEN hearts.

I've said that I'm BROKEN countless times and have heard the word ping-ponged in Christian circles.

But what does it mean to be broken?

What does it mean to LOVE the broken?

Is brokenness something I'm called to or called out of?

How are brokenness and humility intertwined? Or are they?

What are we really describing when we say "brokenness?" Is it just an abstract concept or are there other words?

So I'm left with questions and a wild adventure ahead of me. I don't imagine this will be easy, but I hope it will be worth it.

So Lord? Would You please guide these words? Would You allow me into this conversation with You? And Jesus, if it takes my brokenness to understand this more fully and to be who You want me to be, . . . please . . . break me. You know my reluctance in asking for this. That prayer is hard. But I am Yours, and You are trustworthy. On to adventures? I love You.
Simply Yours

So until tomorrow, I leave you with this:

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.                                     Vance Havner
  

You Desire to Show Compassion

It's taking me minutes made of minuscule millenniums to read the pages for Theology Proper tomorrow, the words meshing together and my brain forgetting them after I've read them.
Junior year of college.
Tired brain.

And so I wake up my sleeping laptop and find myself in front of an open blog page, waiting to be filled, and somewhere I have a list of all the things I've been wanting to blog about, like how Jesus has taught me about His love and dependence. About how I want to let go of being so controlling. About "embracing the lonely".

When I have the time.

Uh huh.

So I write when I don't have the time. Always. Smile.

 Can I share with you about Isaiah and how it wrecked me this summer? Because I think it will be easier for me to blog then read for an assignment due tomorrow. Snap-Crack-It! (It will get done, don't worry!) Anyway, . . . back to this summer.

Summer seems miles behind me as I'm buried in school work and nestled in a home away from my home 2 hours away, but summer was filled with graces and rough patches.

I entered summer in a daze, just finishing an exhausting semester, broken, worn-out, lost.

I had lost Jesus in the book work, in the deadlines, in trying to rescue my world on my own. I missed Him, and I blamed it on Bible college.

But really, I was the one who had ceased to pound on His door.

Summer propelled me into small town living with family and a job that kept me busy from 8am - 5pm, sometimes later. I worked at a Radiator Shop and learned to recognize RV parts and classic rock songs. I drove a pickup truck with pistols in the door and hunting logos on the window. Within a week, I went from studying the Bible as my occupation to studying Monaco's surplus items. I had gone from hearing words like egalitarian, complimentarian, canonical books, Colossians to dimple tubes, air condensers, re-cores, and radiators. 

I was exhausted at the end of the long days and struggled to invest in my family, and they felt dejected. I felt overwhelmed, flailing and failing.

And Jesus saved me through a gentle lake on quiet mornings and the book of Isaiah.

There is a GORGEOUS lake only a few minutes from the Radiator Supply House, and in the early morning, it lays clear and expansive, quiet. Towards the middle of the summer, Jesus and I spent some time by that lake, and we opened up Isaiah and God revealed Himself as the God of Compassion.

I had struggled to see His interaction in my life, and I was wondering if I had blown it, if I was even really walking with Him. And while I had blown it, He blew me away with His grace.

Because in the end, He desires to show compassion.

The Jewish people consistently walked away from YHWH. He knew it. He disciplined them for it. Again. And Again. And Again. Isaiah's full of this talk.

But His heart was always in saving that remnant. He longed/longs to have compassion.

And that helped wound me into healing.

Because if this is really true, then what if my situation and my brokenness weren't hopeless? What if He was longing to show compassion, to bring me back to Himself? What if this was His end goal, and what if His end goals are always completed?

What if God really is the One working in us for His good pleasure? What if He is the One who equips us for His good work? (Heb 13:21-22)

What if we're really not in charge of leading our relationship with Him, but instead, He's the One that desires to lead us and bring us through our discrepancies into integrity, and He will --- if we let Him?

What if His compassion is stronger than our continual falls?

What if He really does want the best for us who love Him?

Compassion.

God relates to us through His compassion, through the fact that He is slow to anger, abounding in love. He remains just. Pure.

It was a process, but Jesus began awakening my soul and restoring it as He showed me more fully who He is. He is a God who desires to show me personally His compassion, His love. Through learning more of His character and of His incredible love, I began to have a little more purpose and more reliance on Him as I worked at the Radiator Shop. I was able to speak about Jesus like I knew Him, because I was beginning to really get to know Him.

Jesus filled me with His love this summer.

Or maybe I should say, Jesus began working in me this summer in restoration, in love-filling. And I don't want to forget that.

Especially as I'm back in this absurd little world called Bible College. :) I want to remember His love and His compassion. I want to know the Person, not just the descriptions, and that He desires to personally interact with me. He does so in compassion.

This God we serve is absolutely mind-blowing. "Oh what love!"

Well, I better wrap this up. I still need to get some Theology reading done, but I'm glad for the reminder to keep my eyes on the God of our Theology. The God of powerful compassion.







.

Broken Bread

School has begun . . . junior year of college. Mercy.

And I just discovered this song on Pandora. Mmm . . .

It's Broken Bread by Rend Collective Experiment.


And well, I need to sleep, but I wanted to brag on my Love for just awhile. :) I came back to school apprehensive, heart hurting, and Love has continued to hold out His hands in the midst of it. Oh what joy to be His. He is involved in precious, incredible ways. He has sent people to make me laugh when I needed it, has sent friends to talk with me, and has reminded me of the beauty of freedom and singleness and a wild living unhindered by dating relationships for the present.

So Jesus? Thank You. Thank You for Your presence in this moment. You fill it, and I smile in the midst of what could be chaos. I am alive, and I'm so grateful for it. Thank You for not leaving me alone. You are incredible!!!!! No greater Love. <3 p="p">
I love You, Abba. Please guide me. Prepare me for homiletics tomorrow (so. scared!). Ease my heart into Your humility, please? Your will done Your way. Much, much love.

Your danae girl, Simply Yours

Secure

I am unsteady, God.
Swallowing water.
Tag me 'Restless'
And send me out to sea.

Promise You'll find me?
Round white life tube
Tucked under my chin,
You pull me in with a
Scarlet Thread.

Be still.
Be still.

Tie me onto You, Jesus.
Please make the knot real tight.

Real tight.