The Role of Brokenness in the Life of a Leader

Matthew 7:24-27 NIV

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

“Tell me honestly how you feel right now,” my psychologist asked. He faced me with his fingers tented and the slightest of smiles on his face. He was setting me up for something. He already knew what I’d say.

“I feel like my faith has been shattered,” I confessed.

His response, however, was the last thing I expected. “That’s good. Now you can begin.”

Definitely NOT what I had expected. I could accept him pointing out a dozen of my flaws and blaming my failure on them. I could understand his blaming my failure on circumstances... but this man was supposed to be a Christian counselor.

Glad my faith was shattered?

He sounded more like the agnostics I’d known who loved to try and paint a Christian in a corner to expose what they felt was a lack of faith. But he’d accomplished one thing. Like any good teacher, he’d shaken my tree and challenged me... he had my full, undivided, and slightly peeved, attention.

“You’re glad my faith is broken?” I asked.

He nodded.

I added, “Could you explain?”

He leaned back in his seat, his posture more casual and comfortable, an effort to ease my growing frustration. Wasn’t working.

“Of course,” he continued. “But it won’t make sense to you all at once. So don’t take this all in without spending some time exploring it, otherwise you’ll quit before your journey begins.”

“How long are we talking about here?” I asked, seriously anxious to be healed and delivered from the emotional stress I was under. I sort of wish he’d just given me a bottle of pills to numb me to the world.

Instead, he’d just added a new knot in my rope.

“It could be weeks or months, but more likely, it’ll be years or even decades... It’s a cumulative understanding you’ll develop. Little bites over a period of time in prayer, observance, and spiritual reflection.”

“Okay, that all sounds pretty vague, albeit mystical. But I need something today. Give me some answer to get me started. I can’t just keep living with this gnawing battle going on in my mind.”

“Sure. Here’s the beginning. It’s a seed, mind you. You can begin by planting it... but don’t forget to water it with scripture and ask God, the Holy Spirit to help it grow in your heart.”

“Hit me.”

“You said you felt as though your faith had been shattered, right?” He asked.

I nodded.

“That’s because your faith was in the wrong thing,” he concluded abruptly, checked his watch, and escorted me to the door... intentionally leaving the subject open so I’d leave wanting more answers.

Yes. I've experienced brokenness before... more than that... shatteredness.

And thank God. It was true that I'd put my faith in the wrong things, found my strength in the wrong things, and trusted the wrong things to be the foundation for my ministry. They failed me. And they deserved to be shattered into a million pieces so that I could never put them back together again... never put my faith and trust in them again. So I could search for the real God.

Brokenness is NOT what we want out of our relationship with Christ, but it is absolutely one of the best things... most necessary things... we must go through, if we want to get past cliche's, platitudes, traditions, organizational structures, and the praise of men... and onto pleasing only God.

Watchman Née best explains the need for brokenness when he teaches that, throughout our lives, we are focused on the world and the flesh, with little regard for the life of the spirit. We feed ourselves on the world and its ways. We indulge and exalt our fleshly lives as though they will never end. And, all along we are building a wall that separates the temporal from the eternal. Our first and foremost thought is to nurture and develop that which will someday only turn to dust.

And this wall becomes a shell between ourselves and our souls. We are dead in this sin. Dead to the realities of God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We may attend church every time the doors are open, but we do not have ears to hear... or eyes to see. We are the blind leading the blind. We are the surprised goats who must depart from the Master, because He does not know us. We are the tares among the wheat. We have a form of godliness, but deny its power, its existence, its presence. We are masters of mixing the ideology of a god, with worldly systems.

So how is a loving God ever to get in? How is that God ever to make it through this shell, this wall, this barrier and saturate our most intimate part? How does the divine paramedic perform CPR to a soul that is without life? He will NOT break through on His own because He has given us the free will to choose.

But He will "give us over" to those things we desire. He will stand back and let difficulties turn to problems which turn to suffering... more than once... until we see how this world, its institutions, its trends, its fads, and our own flesh has been shattered... broken. Only when we truly believe that everything this earth has to offer is but temporary, will we demolish that wall entirely and let God through.

But, according to Nee, brokenness doesn't stop there. Once we've traded the lie for the truth of God and demolished the shell that had separated us from Him, He begins His work IN us. His focus is not outward in the world or in our flesh... but He begins to raise our souls from infancy to maturity.

Eventually, when we've yielded our souls to Him... when He's recreated us on the inside... when the healing and training have taken root... when He has made us a vessel for His purpose... and we realize that we don't OWN exclusive rights to Him. He wants to get to others... through us.

But, even in our own spiritual awakening and development, we can get self-centered and indulgent. We can horde the moving of the Holy Spirit and assume every Bible Study... every Word... every sermon... every tingle... is for us. And again God may step back and wait, while we drift into a stagnant, ritualistic, return to the way we were before we allowed Him in. Again, we've allowed a shell disguised as our "personal relationship" with Christ, to reform. Our souls catch the moving of God... We work on ourselves... but the buck stops there.

Again... as God grows silent at times. As our hunger for Him returns... as He allows the world to again assault us... we cry out to be restored to the joy of our first salvation. The shell is again broken, only this time, it is a shell that traps God IN and keeps us from letting Him out. And, while we needn't be saved again, we can return to the cross and receive that fresh fallen fire as OTHERS are guided toward Him. Our growth, our lives, our soul development, and even our suffering all has purpose when we realize that we not only need to keep the wall between God and us broken down... but also the wall that keeps God from reaching others through us.