If It Ain't Broke......then Break It.

Good morning,

So how many of you have heard the cliché…"if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it"…?

Most people tend to abide by that with the exception of boys between 2 and 6. My youngest son, Dylan, fell into this category. And he still does to a certain extent. When he was 3 or 4, we were visiting my in-laws in Tennessee for Christmas. Well, Dylan found a screwdriver, and from seeing me around the house and at work, Dylan knew what to do with it as well…..Or should I say….knew how to operate it.

Well Dylan took his new found friend and started going around the house in search of something to turn with it. Door knobs, toys, toilet seats…on and on. We finally caught up with him, after many doorknobs came off in our hands, in the Garage. Here we found that Dylan had removed all the screws to all the garage door brackets that he could reach. And he was getting a chair over to reach the rest. One click of the garage door opener would have thrown it all off track.

You see, Dylan’s philosophy was …"if it ain’t broke…then break it"

"if it ain’t broke…then break it" think about that for a minute. Do you realize how utterly God-like that is?

Psalm 34

17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;

he delivers them from all their troubles.

18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted

and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

19 A righteous man may have many troubles,

but the LORD delivers him from them all

You see, God wants us to break. He promises to be `close to the brokenhearted’. To be our source of power, courage and wisdom, helping us to get through our problems. This is when he can show us how great he is and how much we have to learn..

Listen to this quote by Oswald Chambers who was a Scottish minister around the turn of the century.

When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship—when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us." Oswald Chambers

So let me tell you about another member of my family, my youngest daughter Corinne. When Corinne was real young, she had a stuffed pillow like animal that she referred to as merely `Puppy’. It was, or still is I should say as we still have it stored away, a pretty cheap pillow actually. The material was thin, the colors faded rather quickly and it really wasn’t something that you were proud of when you went out with her and she would want to take ’Puppy’. Countless times we tried to bribe her into leaving it in the car. Never happened. She was as proud of her Puppy as anything. Then one day the ’Puppy’ had a run in with the ’Dog’. Needless to say, the Dog won. Puppy was strewn from one end of the house to the other. There was stuffing everywhere. I never knew that Puppy had so much in her. And of course, before we could pick up Puppy’s remains, Corinne walks in and finds Puppy’s tattered corpse lying by the couch. But being the trooper that she was, and much more adult-like than either my wife or I, Corinne picks up Puppy and brings it to her mom….still leaving a trail of stuffing behind. Holds Puppy up to her mom and simply says…Puppy’s broke….

And that would have been fine if both of us didn’t burst out laughing. Which instantly caused Corinne to run to her room and slam the door. What then emerged was a tug of war between my daughter and her mom over Puppy. After going on for what seemed days, my wife finally looked down at Corinne and said…..’ I can’t fix her till you let go of it"

And she let go. And through the years she gained a lot of practice of letting go because that poor thing had to be fixed a lot. If it wasn’t an animal tearing it up, it was her brother pulling puppy’s tail off.

’ I can’t fix her till you let go of it" isn’t that what God is telling us too?

If it ain’t broke….then break it….but let go of it when it breaks.

So lets learn a little here this morning. In our age of disposable everything, what do we normally do with something that is broken?….we throw it away and get a new one. It’s easier that way isn’t it?

Well God does things a little different. Rarely does he give us an easy road to take. He wants us to get down to the point that we can confess those parts of our lives that are painful and hurting, those parts that are not perfect an don’t measure up. God knows that when we get there, our humanity and it’s frailties will become instruments of healing if we allow it to lead us to confessing to God, our dependence on him to set us free.