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Men of Integrity, July/August 2005
When Your Wheels Fall Off
Theme of the Week: Broken Wholeness
Monday, July 18
Key Bible Verse: Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again show me favor? (Psalm 77:7). Bonus Reading: Psalm 77:1-10
Our view of the victorious Christian is a bulletproof Superman who never doubts, always smiles, never struggles, and leaps tall churches in a single bound. We want strong Christians who are always strong—not puny, weak ones who get sand kicked in their faces. In our society and even in the church, we've erected elaborate defenses against vulnerability, weakness, and suffering.
You and I need permission to be broken. To have seasons in our life when we don't have it all together, just like in winter when the trees are barren of leaves. To have periods in which it's okay to struggle. To search for the wholeness that can come out of brokenness. To know it's okay to have a bad day. Or week. Or month. Or year. To not have all the right answers or be able to explain why God is doing what He's doing. To be broken simply because brokenness is part of the human condition.
But people get uneasy if your brokenness hangs around longer than a bad day. They still know the old you, the "you" before you were broken. They don't know the new broken you and neither do you, because you're numb just looking at all the broken shards of your life scattered at your feet.
—Joey O'Connor in The Longing
My Response: Have I equated brokenness with failure?
Adapted from The Longing (Revell, 2004) by permission.
Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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July/August 2005, Vol. 8, No. 4
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Prayer for the Week |
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Hear my cry, for I am very low. Rescue me … so I can thank you. —David, in Psalm 142
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