Coming to the Lord is so simple, and at the same time, so complicated. Simply, we have to be broken, yet the process of that brokenness is the complicated part that is different for each of us. Brokenness has been described as the acute and constant awareness of God’s presence, alongside the devastation from the presence of our sin. Some become broken through a smaller trial, yet others really need to reach the pit of despair before they find the end of themselves, and the beginning of God.
Saul of Damascus persecuted the early Christians, and was one of those responsible for the death of Stephen, the first martyr of Christianity. Jesus spoke to Saul from heaven and blinded Saul on the Damascus Road. It is certain that Jesus prepared Saul’s heart for years, but that was the moment when Saul became Paul and stopped persecuting Christians and began serving the Lord with his life. Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, is another telling example:
28All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. 29 At the end of the twelve months he was walking about the royal palace of Babylon. 30 The king spoke, saying, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?”
31While the word was still in the king’s mouth, a voice fell from heaven: “King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: the kingdom has departed from you! 32 And they shall drive you from men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen; and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.”
33That very hour the word was fulfilled concerning Nebuchadnezzar; he was driven from men and ate grass like oxen; his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.
Daniel 4:28-33
Pride led Nebuchadnezzar down a painful path, which included a step worse than homelessness. Did you notice the “I’s” and “my’s” in the king’s boastful statement, before God got Nebuchadnezzar’s attention? When we are still unwilling to take responsibility for our own sins, we are not yet to the point of brokenness. An example of this would be a person with addictions, who believes he could give up those substances at any time. Truthfully, it is not until we can admit our own inability to control those impulses that we are willing to hand it over to Jesus! The Lord already has demonstrated the length He will go to in order to get our attention. Nebuchadnezzar took seven years of eating grass before becoming humble. Amazingly, after that humbleness, the Lord restored him to his role as King of Babylon.
"God will never plant the seed of His life upon the soil of a hard, unbroken spirit. He will only plant that seed where the conviction of His spirit has brought brokenness, where the soil has been watered with the tears of repentance as well as the tears of joy." --Alan Redpath
Brokenness and freedom go together, in that order; first suffering, then comfort; first trouble, then joy; first felt unworthiness, then felt love; first death to the self, then resurrection of the soul. --Larry Crabb
The Greek word for broken is sunthlao (συνθλάω) from sun meaning “together” and thlao, meaning “to break in pieces or to shatter.” We can either be broken in our pride when we come to Jesus, or broken because of our pride, when we won’t come to Jesus, with the latter being permanent separation from God. Lest we forget, that choice is one each of us gets to make:
44 And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Matthew 21:44
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