Broken

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

We live in a world when something is broken it is discarded and replaced. There was a time when broken things were fixed but not today. Even when a marriage is "broken", it is easier to divorce than to go through the difficulty of restoring the relationship. We do not consider anything that is broken of any worth. But God often sees brokenness as desirable.  

Brokenness is often necessary:

• It takes broken soil to produce a crop
• Clouds must be broken to give us rain
• A diamond must be "broken" to become a precious gem
• Grain must be broken to create bread
• Grapes are crushed to create wine

God often uses broken people, like you and me. We are all broken (Romans 3:23).  Every Superman in Scripture, except Christ, had his Kryptonite moments. If we were to take a roll call of the Bible's greatest losers who in time became God's greatest winners, it may look somewhat like this: 

• Moses was a murderer and disobeyed God (Exod. 2:11-12; Num. 20:11).
• Rahab was a prostitute (Josh. 2:1).
• David was an adulterer and a murderer (2 Sam. 11:4, 15-17).
• Peter denied Christ (Luke 22:57, 58, 60).
• Jacob was a deceiver (Gen. 27:1-29).

If you study Scripture, you will encounter some of the people God used, even though they were broken. People like Moses, Ezekiel, Naomi, and Rahab showed me the other side of brokenness. No matter what broken state we are in, we are never beyond God’s reach. We are never so far gone that God cannot make us effective for God’s purposes.

 I read a true story of a boy that loved to color. He loved to color so much that he would only use Crayola crayons. He would not use any other brand. Sometimes he would come crying to his mother because one of the crayons was broken. She wisely said, “Broken crayons still color baby!” A child may not understand that but as adults we need to realize that though be are broken, He can (and will) still use us.

 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.