Our Brokenness in The Master's Hands

Do you know that movie? The one where little Haley Joel Osment looks up at Bruce Willis and says, “I see dead people” with eyes wide with fear?

Well, I can say with the same wide-eyed look, “I see broken people.” Everywhere I look.

My human reactions to these broken people I encounter are mixed. Sometimes my reaction is total empathy, sometimes sad ignorance, sometimes compassion, sometimes “action” in that I offer help in some way… but there is one reaction I have experienced that surprises even me by how instantly it emerges out of me without my even thinking.

Sometimes… I repel their brokenness.

Like two magnets whose like poles are placed together, my first, instant gut reaction is sometimes to repel that encountered brokenness. It is too much like my own. It brings back too many hard memories, some tangible and some intangible.

I know this isn’t the “Godly” reaction, so how do I fix it?

By letting God turn my brokenness “magnet” around.

I was broken, and some of the scars remain, stretching and pulling, and causing ongoing pain that has to be dealt with. But, I was, and am, being remade by the Great Physician, Jesus. When I gave all the broken pieces of my heart and life to Him, He began putting them back together. Redeeming, restoring, renewing me into a beautiful and usable creation, fit for the Master’s hands, and for His purpose and pleasure.

I am a work in progress. The biggest part of the restoration was when I admitted that I needed restoring. Salvation, that’s called. When I gave my heart and life to Jesus, admitted my sin, and asked for His forgiveness and restoration. That’s when the Creative work began!

I couldn’t fix myself! I couldn’t mend my own brokenness. Only He could do that! And I gave it all to Him and let Him do it! I know, when the work is all finished, I will be better and more beautiful, than I ever would have been otherwise.

You can be too.

We are all broken in some way. Many ways. This is because we are all sinners, and live in a fallen world. Sin breaks us. Our own, and others’ sin used against us. But no matter how broken you are, even if you have been broken to shreds, you are not too broken for God to fix. It’s His specialty! It’s why Jesus, the only unbroken human that ever lived, came and died on the cross. To shed His blood for our brokenness and pay the price for our redemption from the power of sin.

My childhood was where I first became broken. Broken by the abuse that comes from having two broken parents; both severe alcoholics. I know they loved us, but their sinful brokenness prevented them from showing it right, doing it unfalteringly. They were broken towards each other, causing more brokenness, and this just multiplied exponentially as they tried to parent 4 children, breaking them in the process.

Then, as I grew, I chose my own sinful exploits, adding brokenness upon brokenness. I was only 12, but I had already chosen enough sinful paths, that I was on my way to destruction all on my own.

Thankfully, God saw my brokenness, as He sees yours, and He revealed who He was to me, and I accepted Him as my personal Savior. The redemptive work had now begun.

I was saved, and the power of sin had been canceled in my life. But some of the scar tissue still remained. Waiting for the Great Physician to work on it and heal it. I have to continually yield those scars into His loving hands. He has this Balm of Gilead – amazing stuff! – that He applies to all my hurt places when I let Him.

Jesus is continually working, making me into one of His most beautiful creations via the power of the Holy Spirit living in me! But this work, takes all my lifetime to be completed, finally achieving that finished perfection when I reach Heaven’s gates.

This is what He will do for you too, if you let Him. You too can become one of His most cherished works of art! His beautiful Mosaic, where He takes all the pieces and shreds of your brokenness and turns them into the most lovely work of art, on display for His pleasure and for all to see, for all eternity.

Even here on earth, the artwork that is you – if you have given your heart and life to Jesus – is amazing! A work in progress to behold! Jesus is constantly designing, aligning, coloring, and lovingly putting the pieces back together into a beautiful work that defies reasoning, given what He has to work with in the beginning, but He alone is the Master who can do it.

Sometimes, the process is held up. By me. As I try to take it back from His hands and do it myself. I just get cut by the broken shards. But even these, when yielded back into His hands, become part of the finished work. God takes and incorporates even my glitches back into His beautiful masterpiece.

Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are His handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Maybe you are God’s intricate mosaic, piece by piece being artfully placed by His hands. Reflecting His light off your colorful and polished stones.

Maybe you are His stained glass masterpiece, more beautiful than the Chartres Cathedral in France. A cascade of Jesus’s light shining through the myriad of colors of your life.

His beautiful and soul-stirring sonnet, with every line reaching into the deepest part of the heart of all those who read its beautiful and precious poetry.

His amazing painting, far surpassing the whole of the Sistine Chapel, making all who encounter its beauty hush with awe at the inspired beauty in every stroke of the Master’s brush.

Or, His musical concerto composition, greater than Bach, Beethoven or Mozart could ever imagine; Architectural creation greater than anything you see built in our world; …whatever artwork we see in this world, it is nothing compared to the beautiful artwork He is creating in each and every one of His children.

If God created all the natural beauty we see in this world, and created the minds of mankind that create all the artwork we value in our museums and marketplaces, why wouldn’t He save the BEST of His creative ability for His favorite creation – us, the ones He died to save? He did. I am that beautiful artful handiwork in progress. And so are you.

If you have given Him your broken life, and allowed Him to have creative control.

Heaven will be the most beautiful place. Of that, I am completely certain! But it begins here, with us becoming beautiful and less broken day by day by yielding to the Master’s hand.

If you are one of those broken people, who has never given your sinful brokenness to the Lord, you can do that today. Begin fresh. Begin clean and new again. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”

Here is a prayer you can pray, or something similar from your sincere heart. God hears.

Dear God,
I know I am a broken sinner. I want you to redeem me. I believe you died on the cross, shedding your precious blood for me. I know you rose from the dead three days later. Only You have the power to save me. I give it all to you, all my brokenness and my pain. I am so sorry for all my sins. Please come into my heart and life and make me clean and new again. I thank you for your awesome love for me! Thank you dear Jesus, for saving me and loving me. Amen

Here is a prayer if you are already saved, but have kept back some of your brokenness from God’s healing. Only He can heal and redeem all the brokenness in your soul, that caused by others, and that caused by yourself. Acknowledge and ask forgiveness for what you have caused, yield it all to Him, and allow Him to heal and mend what the brokenness has done in your life.

Dear Father,
I have already given my heart to you, but now I want to give you all the pieces of my broken life. (perhaps again!) I yield them all to you. Forgive me for where I have tried to do it on my own, and messed it up. You have a better plan, a better way of putting them together than I could ever conceive of. You are the Master creator, and I want you to create something beautiful out of my life. Help me to continue to yield to you, but right now, I give it all to you. My whole life. My past and my future. My hopes, and dreams and plans and purpose. You love me and have a far better plan for me than I could ever have for myself! Help me to trust in that. I yield it all to you right now. Thank you for the work you are doing in me. Amen

If you have prayed one of these prayers, I would love to hear from you. I would love to add you to my prayer list. You can contact me through the contact page on my blog.