One of my favorite stories is about Chippie the parakeet. Chippie was a happy little bird, content to sit on his perch, swinging and singing to his little heart’s content.
One day Chippie’s owner started to clean out his cage. She took the attachment off the end of the vacuum hose and stuck the hose in the cage to clean the bottom. Just then the phone rang. She turned to pick it up and had barely said hello when "ssopp!” Chippie got sucked up the hose!
As you can imagine, the lady gasped, dropped the phone, and turned off the vacuum. She ripped open the bag just to find Chippie lying in the dust. He was alive, but totally in a daze.
The owner did the only thing she could think of: She picked him up and ran to the bathroom sink and turned on the water full blast. She stuck him under the water and then started to wash the dirt off him really fast, being oblivious to the fact that Chippie was nearly drowning.
Then realizing poor little Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any good bird owner would do; she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the little guy with hot air. Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.
A couple of days later, the person who had originally called made another call to check up on the bird. She asked how the bird was doing. The owner said, “Well, instead of singing like he used to, he just sits there and stares off into space.”
Most of us can identify with little Chippie, can’t we? Things seemed to be going okay in our lives, and then out of nowhere, we are hit hard with something very hard to cope with. And from that point on, we are no longer the same as we were.
Or, when something happens, we try to make them better, only to end up making them much worse. There are times when our lives seem broken and need to be fixed. But where do we get them fixed?
I remember when my son was about 6-years old. He had a toy car that was made out of plastic, and one of the wheels broke off. Instead of asking me to fix it, he sat down and spent most of the day trying to fix it himself. Of course, he wasn’t able to fix it so it stayed broken.
Sometimes, our lives are like that toy car; they break and are in need of fixing. And what do we do? We do like my son did with his toy car. Instead of going to our Father for help, we try our best to figure out how to fix it ourselves. And most of the time, we are unable to fix it.
We ask questions like, "If God is a good God, why am I going through such a hard time?” The most difficult thing to understand in life is why pain, problems and suffering are a part of it. If we are not careful, contemplating "Why?” will leave us bitter and cynical. Spending all our time pondering about why our world is broken does little to mend it.
We must be very careful when trying to figure things out. We don’t like to admit it, but we are severely limited in our abilities to do that. It’s like the old man who said, “When I works, I works hard. When I plays, I plays hard. And when I thinks, I falls asleep.”
I have found, to my experience, it is better to pray about things I don’t understand and then just turn them over to God. If he wants me to understand them, He will give me that understanding. If He doesn’t, I won’t waste my time or His by trying to fix something that may or may not be broken.
I do know this, though. All of us experience problems in this life. Some are more severe than others, but all are of Satan. I have read and re-read the story of creation and have never been able to find where God also created problems for us.
He did not create financial woes. He did not create mental anguish. He did not create sickness. All those things are born of the devil. What God did create, though, is help for us when we experience those problems.
PSALMS 34:18-22
’The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.’
’Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. The LORD redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.’
What is the underlying message of the Bible? It is that everyone who finds refuge in God will find redemption and not be condemned. In other words, if we take refuge in the Lord, He will take care of us when we are broken. That does not mean He will take all our problems away, though. Problems actually do us good.
When we are broken, we should go to the Lord and let Him fix the pieces back together again. He is our delight. He is our Healer. He is our great physician. And it is He who covers us with His love and protection.
But we cannot seek shelter in Him unless we do so with a broken spirit; a spirit that willingly yields control of our lives over to Him. A spirit that says, “Okay, Lord. I cannot help myself any more. I need help and You are the only One who can give it to me.”
PSALMS 51:16-17
’You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.’
We are told over and over again that our God is not the only God. We are told that there are many gods. There is no other god who has offered to have his people come to him for love and nurturing or for protection and healing. We have the only God who has offered that because we have the only God who is in heaven – period! And what He promises, he delivers!
PSALMS 147:3-4
‘He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name.’
Our greatest need is to just realize our need of God’s healing. Jesus came to heal our broken lives. In ISAIAH 53, it says by His stripes we are healed. What does that mean?
Jesus died upon the cross so we wouldn’t have to. Jesus took our sins as His own so we wouldn’t have to be judged for them. Jesus paid the debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we could not pay. And in so doing, He took away our sickness and healed us. All we have to do is accept what He has already offered. But before we can accept His gift, we must believe that it exists.
In the book of JOHN, there is a story of a blind man who received sight. And since everyone thought blindness was always caused by sin, they wondered who had sinned; the man or his parents.
In JOHN 9:3-5, Jesus answered,
"Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
God wants to work His glory in each of our lives. And even though many people think it is too late for them to receive God’s work in their lives, it is never too late for God.
Samson found healing at the end of a wasted life. In 2 CHRONICLES, chapter 33, we see where Manasseh found healing after filling Jerusalem with innocent blood in rebellion to God’s ordinances. And then there was the thief who found spiritual healing as he hung dying on a cross next to Jesus.
To receive God’s covering and blessing, we must know three things. The first thing we must understand is …
1. WHAT CAUSES A BROKEN LIFE
The cause of a broken life is very simple. We experience brokenness when we try to live by our terms instead of by God’s terms. The Bible is full of examples of people who lived broken lives because they did not live for God.
Abraham was called by God; yet, he tried to live life on his own terms for the next forty years. He had his own survival plan all worked out. In the 20th chapter of GENESIS, we read where Abraham went into another land and was afraid people might kill him to take his beautiful wife. So he told everyone that she was only his sister.
King Abimelech saw her and took her into his palace as his wife. God let bad things happen to him, and when he found out who she really was, he asked Abraham why he did that, and Abraham told him that he did that so he wouldn’t be killed over her.
Good example of how we take things into our own hands … to make things better. That is also a good example of how it doesn’t work. Who did he put his trust in? He didn’t put his trust in God, he put it in his own ability to handle things.
What else did he try to handle by himself? He had a child by his wife’s servant. When his wife suggested he have a baby with her servant, we don’t see where he had any hesitation at all. And he didn’t consult God beforehand, either.
Finally, when he had been walking this earth for about 100 years, he finally had a son by his wife. It was at this point in his life that he finally yielded everything over to God. It was late in the game, but he finally humbled his heart to trust completely in God.
Abraham didn’t learn to trust fully in God until he ended up old and all broken down.
And we are the same today. It is when our plans fail and our dreams are shattered that we begin to see what is not right with our lives.
Jacob was Abraham’s grandson, by Abraham’s son Isaac. He knew he was the one God had chosen to keep the promise of many descendants alive. He was constantly reminded of this by his mother.
So Jacob set out to make it happen. And in that quest to handle it himself, he ended up cheating his twin brother Esau out of his birthright. And because he cheated his own brother, he had to flee for his life with nothing but the clothes on his back and a stone for a pillow.
Years later, in his brokenness, God appeared to him and reaffirmed the promise He had originally made to Abraham. Finally, Jacob understood. Even though the covenant had already been made by God, Jacob spent over 20 years of his life trying to be in charge.
We do that, too. Every time we have a major problem come up, the very first thing we do is try to find out how we can manage it. We don’t have any better luck at it than Abraham or Jacob did. When will we ever learn?
So the first thing we need to know is what causes us to have a life that seems broken and shattered. It is when we try to rule our lives instead of letting God have rule over our lives. Another important factor is …
2. HAVING A PROPER ATTITUDE
We forget that a positive attitude will overcompensate most other deficiencies. Years ago, a young lady won a very popular beauty contest. Now, this lady was not the prettiest girl in the pageant, nor was she the most talented.
After she won, a reporter asked her to explain in her own words why she won when all the other girls were so much prettier. The new beauty queen looked at him, smiled and said, “I won because I have a winner’s attitude.”
As we deal with hardship in our lives, attitude is all-important. We need to have self-esteem, but how can you have that when everything in your life seems to be going downhill at breakneck speed?
You can have self-esteem by remembering whose you are. You are the loved child of the Most High God. You are a joint heir to the kingdom of heaven with Jesus Christ. You are His kid, and nothing less! If that does not give you self-esteem, nothing will.
You can have an attitude of self, or an attitude that still focuses on others. That would be a loving attitude. And it can only be through a loving attitude that you will find a faithful attitude. Faith is your attitude towards God. And through that faithful attitude, you will come to realize another attitude. That would be the attitude of hope.
Your hope is an attitude about your future. But to get to that, you must also deal with your past. The attitude of forgiveness is the attitude about your past. Once you have that attitude of forgiveness, you are free to concentrate on the attitude of hope, which will end up lightening your load for today.
Attitude is our most valuable asset when our dreams are shattered and lives are broken. Attitude determines whether we become bitter or better. If we rebel against life’s problems we end up cynically bitter, and we end up being the loser. If we end up better, we end up happier, and that will make us winners.
The wonderful thing is that attitude is a choice made by each of us. We have the God-given ability to choose our response. We have the ability to make a choice for what we want. It is the attitude we choose toward life and in times of shattered dreams that will make us or break us.
JAMES 1:2-3
’Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.’
It is during times of brokenness that we rely upon God. So, it is not the problem itself that we consider a joy, it is the opportunity the problem gives us to go back to God with an attitude of reliance and dependence.
The most difficult thing to understand is why problems and suffering are a part of life. But whatever the reason for pain and suffering, remember God can use it for our greatest good.
ROMANS 8:28 gives us a guarantee that, with God, everything will be okay.
‘And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.
This is the major way God demonstrates his power over sin. He can use it to our good and his glory. But our attitudes must remain flexible enough to receive God’s will.
In our small group, we have been going through the book of EPHESIANS. There is one very important thing we found in that book.
EPHESIANS 1:3 gives us a remarkable insight into what God has done for us.
‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.’
Let’s break this down. Who is being praised? God! Jehovah Jirah, our Provider. And what is He being praised for? He is being praised for providing! Providing us with what? With every spiritual blessing that is available through Jesus, the Christ. And what kind of blessings are these? These are Godly blessings.
In this verse in EPHESIANS, we are told that God has blessed us; that means he has already given us every blessing I Christ.
It’s there waiting for us to take it. All we have to do is have an attitude to receive what God has already provided.
During times of affliction and hardship, we tend to run to God. And like I said, the worse things get, the faster we run. But we still have a problem understanding that God has given us healing in a multitude of ways, and all we have to do is receive it.
But before we can begin to receive our blessings through a Godly attitude, we must …
3. RECOGNIZE THE NEED FOR CONFESSION
Confession is an important part of recognizing our brokenness. On Pentecost the Jews "were cut to the heart" as they recognized their brokenness. They cried out, "what shall we do.” They recognized their brokenness and then they accepted the responsibility for their brokenness.
Failing to accept responsibility for our broken lives only brings misery. Sometimes, we even try to deny our responsibility by saying, "I haven’t done any worse than anyone else.” But we have to realize that just because everyone else might be jumping off a cliff does not mean we should.
Or, we play the blame game. “It wasn’t my fault, somebody made me do it.” That excuse may have worked well with Flip Wilson, but it doesn’t fly when dealing with God.
As long as we blame others we remain the same. When God asked Adam what he had done, Adam blamed Eve. And then Eve turned around and blamed the serpent. When we confess guilt, we open up the chains that bind us to the past. Until we claim responsibility for our broken world, we will never gain a fresh start.
Confession brings us to admitting the sin and calling it what it is, but it is repentance that determines whether or not we will change or stay the same. Repentance is where we turn our lives around. It is repentance that gives us a new direction to travel.
Often when life is broken, we just work harder on our own to try to fix it. You may see the difficulty, feel the pain and sense the need to reevaluate things, but instead you choose to just try harder the next time around.
The difficulty with this type of thinking is that we will just keep going around, around and around because we are unwilling to face our difficulties and respond to them correctly.
I heard a definition of insanity that I really liked. Let me share it with you.
“Insanity is when you keep doing the same things over and over, and each time expect to get a different result.”
Until we have an attitude of repentance, we will just keep repeating things over and over again. The problem is that just keeps giving us the same results, over and over again. It becomes a very vicious and painful circle. We want to fix our lives on our own terms. That is the problem.
In a moment, we will have the praise team come forward for invitation.
When troubles come and go, and then come around again, it is because we have failed to learn how to properly deal with them. Problems will always be there, like dirt swept under a carpet, until we learn how to deal with them properly and honestly.
The native tribes in New Guinea have found a way to trap a certain type of monkey. They drill a hole in the side of a coconut and then stuff all kinds of berries and fruits into the coconut through the hole.
When the monkey puts his hand in there to grab the goodies, his fist becomes too big to pull it out of the hole. He doesn’t realize that if he would open his hand and let go of the goodies, he could easily slip his hand out. So, there he waits, until the natives come and kill him and take him home for monkey stew.
Many of us react to life in the same manner. We hold onto our old lifestyles and find it impossible to have a new lease on life. We would rather do the same things in the future that we have done in the past. There is an old saying that goes, “If you continue to do what you have always done, you will continue to get what you have always gotten.”
And what we have always got has been brokenness. Is it possible that God has broken you to the world around you, just to get your attention so He could use you for His kingdom? Have you come to him in total brokenness yet, asking Him to bless you with physical and spiritual healing so you can be used? Have you asked Him to take you and do what He pleases with you? And finally, is your attitude one of eagerly awaiting to see what He is going to use you for?
Will the praise team please come forward?
Before a potter can use a lump of clay, he must first knead the clay over and over until he gets the dirt out of it. When it is all clean, he then keeps kneading it to make sure the consistency is uniform and even.
Then, he molds it and finally fires it in the furnace. Afterwards, he puts a hot glaze on it and puts it back into the furnace again. The finished product is a beautiful and useful tool. But it had to be changed and broken before it could be used.
Before God can use you, you must also be broken and changed – from the inside out. But God will not force that upon you. That is something you must decide to let happen by yourself.
But once you make that decision, God’s loving hands will begin to work in your life, and that is when you will start seeing how you really can reach out and start accepting all that God has already given you.
INVITATION
