How to Shatter Your Mirror of Brokenness and Find Real Freedom

Broken.

I could feel the wind deflating in me, like a falling helium balloon, slowly drifting to the ground.

Sleepless nights, teething, throwing a surprise party, a conference weekend. The days spun on. And the body is only so strong under the weight of our own carnality.

Crackling, crumbling, I smiled on the outside, but inside I could feel the need to pull myself together, while the multitiudes kept screaming, “Welcome, broken things. Embrace and camp and live there.”

But why does our society keep tredding water tirelessly in a an ocean…forgetting about our anchor?

And who knows, one person can only paddle so long, one life can only crumble so much?

Eventually pieces must have purpose, find their place, get glued together, or no pile of ashes will ever do effective work for His Kingdom.

He who calls us is able. Reconstructing, reconciling, redeeming us to wholeness and healing. So, we can do more than hold our hands open in emptiness. Dusty from our own insignificance.

In Him we are able to rise, stand, use our hands and feet? 

Psalms 118:5, “In my anguish I cried out to the Lord and He answered by setting me free.”

And I know, as a soceity, our pain is like a magnet for people. Any heart-aching testimony, any down-on-your-luck story, any I-come-from-hard-places-and-am-broken journey…..

Gains hits and watches, draws those who resonate with the heart-broken defeat and anguish eckoing in their very own soul…

But why is it, the last part of verse five, is something our society misses?

Him.

When we cry out to Him, give Him our broken pieces, have we forgotten He doesn’t just leave us there, but answers by setting us free?

I climb up from my exhaustion, after a night of crying out, seeking God, longing for Him to rush in and repair the broken pieces of my story.

See, I don’t need someone to come and identify with me. I don’t need an earthly reflection to tell me to embrace my broken places.

Much of my life’s journey, my own broken pieces have looked me in the mirror, cried out to me in my sleep, taunted me with inadequacies and insignificances for days, months and even years.

In fact, my broken pieces have owned me, center stage, for far too long. My guess is, yours have too?

Yes, they have been too loud, too needy. Demanding time, attention, pain and feelings I did not have to give.

They have haunted and threatened, and promised me, “Broken is how I live and broken is how I stay”…

Yet, scripture calls us to rise, breach the gap, build a wall from the destruction that lies outside the camp. It teaches us out of heart-ache and ashes…

And there is a victory most of us are missing, hesitant to recieve, are fearful to attain or walk in, because we’ve grown accustomed to and have unknowingly sewn in our brokeness…

And let’s face it, “brokenness” can sometimes get comfortable, justifying our immobility, excusing our inactivity can be used as a crutch for our apathy.

But, awaken church, God is calling us to more.

Like the prodical son, let’s stop rejecting the Father’s robe, sandals and ring He freely gives to us.

Let’s stop owning identities flawed, rebellous, hesitating coming to the feast inside the very own heart of the Father.

And yet, we have learned, wallowing with pigs, living wildly apart from the Father gets more media attention and sells more books, than wholeness, called, complete freedom. 

Jesus died on the cross, broken, poured out…but friends, He didn’t stay there?

Down-trot, continually hanging from our crosses, why do we think somehow God is glorified in our unreconciled, unredeemed, unrestored broken-ness and ashes?

Isn’t He the God of the resurrection?

Aren’t we called, “The Bride of Christ”. Didn’t He rise, walk, to offer us His Spirit; fullness of life, freedom, and hope for all of eternity?

This Lent many takes weeks mourning and grieve, stepping into the fullness of a God who took upon Him the stripes that we never bore, the scars we might otherwise have endured…

Recognizing the crown of thorns that left blood running down His head…

But my guess is, many will of you will spend most of this year continuing to crucify YOU? With words, lies, lashing saying, “You are not good enough”, “Your scars are too big for God to use you”…

You will stay on the cross missing His resurrection in US.

Yes, most of you already know your desperate state without God.

But what about the freedom He holds out to us? Have we taken that great prize? Have we stepped into a life with The Pearl of Great Price with hope and expectation?

Do we understand our God came not just to die, but to rise and free us?

“I cried out in my anguist and He answered….by setting me free.”

Today, I personally choose to rise in that victory, shift my mind outward, pick up my phone, and invite others into this world where God is bigger than my brokenness.

Shattering the lie that says, “I need rest”, or “I should just hold some package of all my broken things and cling to it until I die.”

No, Martin Luther calls it the “Great Exchange” where our sins are no longer ours, and His righteousness is no longer just His.

We hand Him our brokenness and He replaces it with the wholeness of all He is.

 

It’s a new day. And if you reading this, you are called to rise in so much more than some handful of ashes.

You are called to take up your “Yes'”, get up, and be the church as He asks of us…

Jesus death paid for our life abundant. His death wasn’t just some ticket to drag us across the finish line.

Can’t you just imagine a multitude dancing into heaven? All rejoicing, all celebrating the freedom brought to many HERE ON EARTH…now because of His righteousness?

Verse 6 in Psalms 118 says…the part after the anguish…the verse after the set-free portion…“The Lord is with me, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

 

This Easter, I challenge you to look upward. Strip off the sackcloth, shift your eyes upward, and draw people inward to a gospel that is bold and fearless, faith-filled, and redemptive.

 

There is victory in His blood. There is grace and favor, and healing and redemption in His love.

Where are you walking in brokenness? Where have you yet to exchange the staring pieces of broken glass taunting you in the mirror?

Won’t you give him your ashes and exchange them for beauty?

Let’s rise church. God has work for us to do.