On this ground the masquerade of our condition is revealed for the farce it is, While our broken reality is finally exposed… fully laid bare.
The place of brokenness is the ultimate equalizer. Whether rich or poor, strong or weak, loved or hated each one has come to the end of their road… such is the naked truth of brokenness. Until then we fight tooth and nail to keep up our pretenses that all is well… that this world is enough.
Don’t get me wrong. There are many things in this world that yield unspeakable happiness but these are not the keys to our joy nor the answer to our question of hope. We were made for more. We were made for God… to worship and love him above all else. Only then do we find the life that has always eluded us.
Deep down we know this—even if only faintly—but the implications are too disillusioning and depressing to pursue. For it would mean unseating ourselves from the throne of our hearts and actually making God the focus of our lives.
So, instead, we pin our hopes and dreams on people and things to satisfy our souls and complete our joy. But our hearts are insatiable, perpetually craving more and never satisfied with enough… eventually, we learn to chasten our hopes and expectations. Truly, apart from disaster and true desperation, we rarely get so miserable as to risk the joys and loves we have found for the hope of better things yet to be gained.
So why don’t we take that risk? We are creatures of comfort who relentlessly hold on to what they already have. Like Gollum, we protect our “precious” even to the detriment of our lives. Our absolute commitment to self-protection has no room for the unpredictability of faith. Unfortunately, when we choose to believe God only when it seems “safe” we prevent faith from taking deep root in our hearts. Even more, in the dark night, no Christian benefits from such nominal faith. Yet, it is precisely on this ground of brokenness where we gain the faith we need… and it changes everything.
I remember my time of discovery. It was in a season of incredible desperation. I finally released my fear of trusting God and, when I did, he deconstructed my reality by showing me he really was enough, he truly was all I needed. So, as we give him our brokenness he in turn gives us hope, makes us whole, and fills us with his love. Next week we talk about what it means to really own our brokenness and why this is so important.
What Do You Think?
Can you identify with this reversal of realities? What was your masquerade… what did it pretend to have that you never could find?
♦ To see the video and poem this post is based on, click here.
