Brokenness: Be Careful How You Pray
Most of the songs that we sing in church are prayers. A song we sang recently was no different. In the first verse, we prayed for righteousness in the second verse, we prayed for holiness. These are good things to pray for. Yet, the third verse says this: “Brokenness is what I pray for.” Then, I stopped singing and asked myself, “Why would anyone ever pray for brokenness? Do you understand what you are asking for?
For most people, every day is good. Then, one day, a phone call informs you that a loved one has taken their own life. At that moment, you discover what brokenness is. A young family says their prayers at bedtime, but later, they are awakened by the sound of a smoke alarm. They end up standing outside, watching as their home is engulfed in flames, and this is brokenness. You are proud that you can give to your family, but then your job is eliminated, and you experience brokenness. Many of us have experienced challenges like this. Why would you want to pray for brokenness?
In the Bible, Job’s story is one of extreme brokenness. Financial ruin, heart-rending grief, and intense suffering left this once prosperous man crushed and shattered. In the third chapter of Job, he says, “The thing I feared has overtaken me. What I dreaded has happened to me. I can’t relax or be still; I have no rest, for trouble comes.” Job never prayed for brokenness; it was what he feared and dreaded. But he was broken, and from his story, we can learn how to react when we are broken.
Now, I wish that none of us would ever have to suffer. And I will never pray to be broken. However, we live in a fallen world where things get broken. Our lives may be shattered, and our hearts broken. Yet, we can rest in the knowledge that Jesus was sent to heal the brokenhearted. A broken and contrite heart is a sacrifice that God will never despise. So, like Job, let’s trust God. We should learn to say, “God, you are the One who gives. You are the One who takes away; blessed be Your Holy Name forever.
“Then Job answered the Lord and said: “I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:1-6 NKJV
https://bible.com/bible/114/job.42.1-6.NKJV
Douglas & Deborah
From Down Where the Pavement Ends
Email-douglas@pavementendsministry.com
