Don’t you hate when you break something? Maybe it is your favorite power tool, or drinking glass, or spatula and you depended on it. Now, it is broken and cannot be fixed. Bummer!
I am not the best cook, but I try. I had cooked a marvelous meatloaf (so I think!) and was using my best spatula to lift it out of the pan and onto a platter. I guess the accumulated stress on this tool took it’s toll. Next think I know, POW! the handle goes flying out of my hand and across the room. I was startled, but kept my composure. I looked at the meatloaf…it looked okay, but under the edge of the loaf was the bottom of my spatula. Bummer! Now, all I could do was to throw it in the trash.
We are, at best, broken people. God designed us in the beginning to be perfect and enjoy our fellowship with Him and with each other. Then sin entered in, Adam and Eve fell, and we became broken. We see this all the time in our broken relationships, the anger, resentment, the addictions, the attempt to fill the gap with material things or perhaps with relationships. It brings a shallow, and temporary feeling of wellness, but soon, the ache comes back. We are broken.
Good News!!! Jesus came to bring to us the very healing we need. He begins by forgiving our sin, then He takes up residence inside our lives. He guides us, directs us, protects us, helping us to grow to be more like Him. He blesses us as we live obedient to Him. We begin to experience a foreshadow of eternity with Him.
Why would He want to do that for us? What have we ever done for Him? Precisely nothing! He wants to do it for us because He loves each of us more than we could ever love anyone. He came and died on a cross because … we are broken. He takes the brokenness of our lives and puts the pieces together in a way that blesses us and in a way that He uses to bless other people. God gets the glory. Our brokenness qualified us for His grace!
In our new church building, we will have three stained glass windows. The one in the middle will be higher than the other two and will be right under the steeple. This one will be different from the other two. It will appear broken. Why? Because you and I are broken and God has taken the broken pieces of our lives and put them together into a thing of beauty. We want that window to shout the good news out to the community! Jesus is alive and loves you! Will you love Him, too?