Brokenness, the Catalyst For Change

The headlights were bearing down on me at sixty miles an hour, ready to smash into my car, broadside.  My life was about to end, so I looked away and waited, wondering how quick it would be, and how much it would hurt. I had become disoriented in a heavy rainstorm, after dark, and had come to a stop, not at the stop sign, but in the middle of the northbound lane of state highway 224. Fortunately, the other driver was able to swerve, and I was able to accelerate just enough that the crash did not kill or maim either of us.

It has been nearly two years since that horrific incident and I have not driven my car through that intersection a single time since that night. I changed my route permanently. It was easy to change.

Whenever I have the opportunity to teach about living by grace rather than living by self-effort I am eventually asked the question, “So what is the catalyst to change?” You see, grace is inviting, whereas trying to please God by getting my act together on my own is futile and tiring. So, what is the gimmick? What is the secret? Where is the switch to turn it on, they ask. I give them my answer, what I learned from my own experience, and from an abundance of Biblical stories. I preface it by saying that it is probably not the answer they want to hear. The catalyst for change, my friend, is brokenness, I tell them. Apart from a crisis of brokenness no one has much of any incentive to change. Brokenness is the doorway in to living by grace and walking in step with the spirit. And on the doorknob you will find inscribed the word humility.

Change is difficult. It is nigh unto impossible. That’s why we use the word “addiction”. How many times have you tried to change a bad habit and failed. The chains of that bad habit were so light at first that you did not even feel them, but by the time you wanted to change the chains were so heavy that you could not break free. You discover that will power is no power at all. The only thing that will initiate change is not resolve, but crisis. Welcome the brokenness. Don’t curse the bad luck, don’t waste the moment. Submit to the love of God and the love of close friends. Cherish the gift of forgiveness. And surrender to the work of repentance that the spirit of God is doing. When the prodigal son came to the point of brokenness and returned to the love of his father, the story ends by saying that the angels in heaven rejoice whenever one person repents, when someone is transformed and changed.

No one knows the Healer until they need healing. No one trusts the Provider until they are penniless. No one surrenders to the Prince of Peace until all hell breaks loose. And I am afraid that very few comprehend or trust grace until the weight of bitterness or shame becomes unbearable.

God cannot use you until first you are broken. My daughter, Erika, got a small Shetland pony for her young daughter to ride. Rocky was green, never ridden, even though he was ten years old. Erika patiently tried to break the horse, to get his will surrendered to the idea of having a rider on his back. But he was stubborn, self-willed, and was never broken. He even cornered a larger horse in a stall and kicked it to death. Rocky ended up being good for nothing but a pasture ornament. He looked good, but he was useless.

God is not sitting on his hands up in heaven waiting till we give up so he can rescue us. No, He works hard to bring us to brokenness, to a place of humility and surrender. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. He is in the business of transforming lives, freeing us from every bit of self-obsession. He desperately wants to help us learn to live in his love, dependently trusting His powerful grace.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (II Cor 12: 7-10)