What It Means to Be Gracefully Broken

God: Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?

This is one of my favorite movie quotes. It is from the movie Evan Almighty. It’s one that has stuck with me over the years in many scenarios. It has also made me very careful about what I pray for. Before I started this blog, and even now, I send these essays to my staff weekly and several years ago, I realized that whatever essay/devotional I would send them each Monday I would inevitably deal with whatever the topic was that week. If I was talking about patience, I’ll be damned if my patience didn’t get tested that week. If I wrote about grace, so many situations would arise that required me to decide between grace and justice.

I often do not understand God or His ways. I do not understand His grace for me, His mercy for me and I also do not understand the pain He allows in. I do not understand why He does what He does when He does it. There is a song I love called ‘Gracefully Broken’ and in the live version of the song the artist talks about how God breaks us but He is always breaking us gracefully, without hurting us or destroying us. To be honest, I struggle with believing this. I can’t say that God has never broken me in a way that hurt me. I can’t say He has never broken me in a way that destroyed me in some ways. What I always come back to though is that He works ALL things together for good. 

The past 8 months of my life have broken me, and it has not always been graceful. Many times it has been the opposite of that. It has hurt and destroyed me in many ways; so while I can’t exactly get to the belief that He never breaks me without hurting me or destroying me, I do have the belief that those things had to break me and hurt me and destroy me to make room for the ALL things together for good part. That is what I cling to.

So when I ask God for wisdom or patience or courage, I know He is not just going to give me those things without me breaking something else. I can’t be wise unless my flesh dies in some ways; because my flesh will always want what it wants when it wants it and it will prevent the pause I need to take to find wisdom. I can’t have courage without breaking my comfort. I can’t have family unity without letting the pride break in me that says ‘they don’t deserve another chance’. 

I often wonder what I asked God for that has led me to the past 8 months of breaking. I can see that He is working these things for good, I can finally see that, but I wonder what I asked for from Him that he decided that I needed to be destroyed in some ways to get what I truly want and what He truly wants for me. And truthfully, I do not remember. I have asked God for more over the years than should be acceptable and I could never remember all that I have asked Him for but I imagine that somewhere down the line, I asked Him for a closer relationship, I asked Him to remove what is not for me, I have asked for wisdom so many times, I have asked Him to change me into who He wants me to be, I have asked Him to show me how He sees me and help me see myself that way, I have asked Him to fill me so I can pour onto others, I have asked for love, for friendships, for dreams for my future, to feel more, to give me purpose, ect. ect. ect.

And He is doing that. I can’t say it is pretty, or graceful all the time but it is happening.