We all love the good time, the best times and the cool times. We don't like the worst times, the bad times and the screwed up times. Our lives have a plethora of both times. Good versus bad. That's what the daily fight is all about. We are faced with ourselves and who we are 24/7. There is no escaping the past or the present. We can plan for the future though. When we finally learn that lesson where we cannot fix ourselves we also admit that we are broken. There isn't just something that is broken; there are many areas of our lives that are broken. Fact is every area of our lives that isn't turned over to God is broken. We cannot fix them. We cannot hire someone to fix them. We cannot ignore them and we cannot forget them. We are a broken people from conception to eternity. If we are all broken, why do we seem content to stay broken? I'd like to suggest that we take our lives and create a new "not broken" definition. Yes, we have problems but so does everyone else and thus we aren't broken. Wrong. A few years ago I was building a project and a piece of wood fell and struck the big knuckle of my left hand. I knew I was hurt and that something was most likely broken. Being the person I am I chose to continue working and two weeks later decided that I needed to have my thumb looked at by a doctor. Yep, there is something in there that's broken. He said this with the "you're a dumb one aren't you." Yes, I'm broken and fight going to get help when it's needed.
After the fact is about how most people live their lives. We know that we are broken and yet, we don't really care to do anything about it. So, we make the same errors over and over expecting different results. When that happens we just re frame the thought and make it our new definition of what is normal. After all, everyone else is doing it. Over the years of my life one area of reflection has been the language we use when we write or talk. We've taken simple sentences and laced them with profanity, misspelled words, and invented words to boot. One must almost learn a new language to talk with our children today. Language has become broken. Even as I write there are words being created and words that are being eliminated due to one force or another. Yet, the Word doesn't change. The Word doesn't get misspelled. The Word isn't redefined. The Word is not obsolete and to be ignored. There is no new Word. What's been said in the Word remains forever. The Word isn't broken and there is no need to fix anything that isn't broken.
I've had the most common of broken bones; the little toes on both feet. I've broken both of my thumbs. My right ankle, both wrists, left elbow, both shoulders and my knee have all been broken (torn or damaged) and remind me of their broken status every day. Sometimes there is no option by replacing broken with new. My left knee is worn out. It needs to be replaced and when I drop a few more pounds I'll have it replaced. It cannot be fixed. The old has to be removed and the new installed. I have hurt so many years that I've come to ignore the pain and just plow on through that pain regardless. Very little comes in my way that I cannot do. That's the way it is with our souls as well. They were created before the foundation of the earth by a God who knew everything that would happen in our lives. He knew we would live with broken souls and broken dreams because we had a broken heart. There was only one way to heal the broken hearted. That was to send a new heart. Jesus is that heart. When he gave his heart so I could live, I not only gained a new heart but a soul and dream as well. My broken heart is gone and Jesus' eternal heart remains within me. That doesn't mean I've arrived. I still fight to retain broken parts of my life. You do it too if you are honest with yourself.
Realizing I was broken was the first step in allowing myself to be mended. Like David, I asked God to create in me a new heart. Psalm 51 is that plea and lament. We need to recognize that something is broken in order for us to be aware that we need Jesus. Complacency in the Christian community is nothing but broken people who have redefined their Christianity so that they don't want the new heart of Jesus. If they had Jesus' heart they wouldn't be sitting around justifying and rationalizing their lives and ridiculing the lives of those who live for Jesus. Broken is as broken does. Don't be broken for eternity. Choose to have the broken replaced with the whole. It's always your choice.
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