“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Psalm 51:17
The Lord is looking for brokenness in His church. We might think of this as a misplaced idea, but it is not. It is the true power of a Living God. I am not of the belief that God is the author of suffering in our lives, however I do believe that He uses every situation that brings brokenness to make us more like Christ.
We can think of brokenness as the oxen yoke where our power and personality are harnessed and yielded to Him. When the Lord allows our brokenness, He is putting down the old man, our self life, and raising in us the Christ-life of being yielded to His perfect will.
Psalm 51 is an inscription David penned after committing the sin of adultery and murder. God used David’s genuine repentance to break his heart and give him the final authority for leadership and service. His repentance led to his brokenness and ultimately the worship that filled David’s life deep within.
The Hebrew term for brokenness is ‘shabar’. It means to break in pieces, rend violently, wreck, crush, maimed, crippled, and shattered to brokenness. It is, at its core, the birthing of something. In essence, brokenness is not the end of a thing but the beginning of something new. Consider the seed. It has a cover and it is tiny in retrospect to its completed fruition. The cover must be broken in order to start the growing and new birthing process. Without the cover being dissolved there can be no new fruit. In other words, when we are broken as David was broken, it is not the end of us, but the beginning—something of God is birthed in us. In our brokenness God deposits a part of Himself.
We tend to think of brokenness as the end—something is destroyed and rendered unusable, but in God’s economy, true brokenness is the beginning of Godliness. The world wants greatness. God wants brokenness. In God, brokenness is the first step to greatness.
The Four Things That Lead to Brokenness
We are often broken over the things we love the most. I have found four things that the Lord uses over and over again to weave brokenness into the hearts of His servants.
- The Presence of God—(Moses)
Moses journeyed from being a prince in Egypt to becoming the meekest of men. Moses had many encounters with the manifest presence of the Lord, and it was in the presence of God that Moses’ heart was broken. His presence breaks our heart when we are confronted with His awesome greatness. The sight of God involves the sight of self. When we see Him, we see ourselves, and a moment of honesty is forced upon us. Our encounter with God’s presence is not simply to give us an ‘experience’ of God, but to build into us the character of Christ.
- The Word of God—(Ezra)
God’s Word is not any other book—His presence is found in the pages. When Ezra read from God’s Word all the people worshiped and wept. “And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up: and Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground” Neh. 8:5-6.
It is a blessing to see how the people of Israel reacted to the Word of God. The Lord really wants all of us to find Him in His Word. It is here that our hearts are made soft and we plough the hard places—becoming ready for His still quiet voice.
I believe the Lord intends for our hearts to be broken in these ways—through His presence and through His Word. However, if we refuse brokenness, then the Lord will allow us to go down these next paths—they are infinitely more difficult, but the lessons are the same, and God’s promises to be with us on this journey are certain.
- Sin (David)
2 Samuel 11-12:22 tells the story of David’s great sin before the Lord, and the punishment God used to bend David’s heart back to His presence. It is through genuine repentance that David came to the place of brokenness.
There are eight steps that David walked through as he arose from the place of repentance to brokenness where his heart was formed to be pleasing to the Lord (Acts 13:22, “God testified concerning him: “I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.”).
2 Samuel 12:20— “So David arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house; and when he requested, they set food before him, and he ate.”
- David arose—sin is not the end of the story about us—we have a Redeemer. You cannot stay in your sin—or even in the shame of it—we must rise up. We cannot fully face what we are in Christ until we face what we are without in Christ. David faced himself and was then able to rise up and become who God planned him to be.
- David washed himself—There is washing that we must do for ourselves. Repentance is a great washing: Ephesians 5:26, “…that He might sanctify and cleanse her (the Church) with the washing of water by the word.
- David anointed himself—true repentance brings with it a new anointing.
- David put on fresh garments—robes of righteousness and garments of praise.
- David went to the house of the Lord—sometimes we run from God’s house and His people when we have sinned. The opposite should be true—we need to run into God’s house and make His presence our refuge.
- David worshipped—worship is the greatest fruit of the broken heart.
- David went to his own house—True brokenness was not complete until David was restored within his own family. We need to be restored among the people who have known us the most. Sometimes we run from those we know, and unfortunately, the Church has been better at uncovering the sin and not restoring the brokenness (Gal. 6:1). This should never be—we need to be like Jesus—champions of forgiveness and restoration.
- David ate a meal with his family—this is a beautiful picture of the Church as we share the great meal (communion) of forgiveness, restoration, and hope.
- Circumstances (Job)
Job suffered catastrophic loss—he was launched into a season of unprecedented suffering. So many of us would crumble under such a weight (he lost all of his children, health, property, servants and his livelihood), and yet he bowed and worshipped before the Lord and professed:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord” Job 1:21.
As you read through the book of Job, you can clearly see how the suffering he went through strengthened his faith and took him from being a Godly man even more devout and gracious than before.
It is so true that character is not made in a crisis—only exhibited. The strength of character exhibited by Job did not just appear at the moment of suffering—it was formed in him during the every day decisions to serve God with all his heart throughout his life.
There is something about suffering that sculpts our character if we allow it. I think life hands every one of us some degree of suffering from time to time. In fact, there are many things in life that are not fair. But the decisions we make when we are facing trials are some of the most important decisions of our lives. When we choose to honor the Lord as Job did, we will see the glory of the Lord. Every trial brings with it a seed for equivalent or even greater blessing. We just have to find that seed and plant it in our patient, yielded hearts.*
*excerpts from Dr. Rocco’s new book, “Prophetic Worship,” available at http://www.Dr.SteveRoccoministries.org or Amazon Prime
Dr. Steve Rocco Ministries 