PASTOR’S CORNER: God broke you to share you

Glenn Packiam said we met every Thursday after he lost his wife in a car accident. Sometimes he came with questions to which no answers exist, sometimes he came with memories he wanted to relive. Over time, he accepted that even though the accident was a result of the brokenness in our world, God could work in the midst of it. A few years later, he taught a class at our church about grief and how to grieve well. Soon, he became our go-to guide for people who were experiencing loss.

Community friends, sometimes God has to “break” us so that he can share us. For it is in our brokenness that we can see people where they are. In brokenness, we can feel others’ sorrow and pain. We can identify with people in strange and unfamiliar places and it causes us to see things, people and circumstances differently when we have been broken. The only heart that Jesus has in this world is our heart, and he can only reach and touch people through his people here on earth.

I’ve tried and you’ve tried to sympathize with the pain of others. I’ve tried and you have tried to encourage others during some trying times in their lives. I have quoted scripture as a means to give spiritual salve to the wounds of those who are suffering in pain and just simply going through.

Some of you have done the same thing. We are our brother’s keeper and we as Christians are family so we use these methods plus prayer to bring comfort to our brothers and sisters who are broken in spirit, but sometimes it’s hard to minister to somebody. It’s hard to relate to somebody when you have not experienced what they have experienced or been where they have been. This is why we shouldn’t say to somebody, “I know what you are going through.” When we have not gone through that particular thing.

My community friends, if you have never shed any tears, it is hard to sympathize with somebody else who is shedding tears. We can imagine what it feels like, but when we have not been there we just don’t know.

I have discovered, that when you or I have been broken, we can share with somebody else who has been broken. As a young Christian and minister, I ministered to other people who lost loved ones. I visited homes and paid my respect to people who were going through bereavement and I was sincere, but at that time all of my relatives were still living. I had my mother, aunts, all my siblings, cousins and relatives who I had known all my life. It was not until I lost some close relatives myself, mainly my mother, and since then three sisters; all my aunts and uncles are gone.

It was when I had to stand there with tears and say goodbye to loved ones myself that I got a deeper sense of what sorrow and pain is really like. In other words, God had to break me so that I could minister more effectively. I say that to you reading today. See, God doesn’t inflict brokenness on us for no reason (Lamentations 3:33-35). In our fallen world, God does not delight in causing us to have pain. He gets no personal pleasure out of it when we have to say goodbye to loved ones. With our hearts bleeding, a lot of things that happen to us don’t make sense sometimes but in his infinite wisdom he knows that the only way that he can share us is to break us. Folks that have not been broken cannot be effective.

So, if we are in a valley place this morning, broken, know that somebody will cross your path in life and will need your testimony, your tender touch, your listening ear and a compassionate heart as a result of what you are going through now.

We need to pray and say, “Lord, if that’s what it takes to make me, then break me! If it’s going to work for my good and your glory, then break me!” And friends I know, that when God breaks us, it feels like we are going to die. No, he doesn’t break us to kill us, he breaks us so that he can use us!

So, if that’s what it takes, then break me Lord!

This brother, we mentioned earlier who lost his wife in a car accident had some questions to which there was no answer. I mean, how do you explain the death of someone who has their whole life ahead of them? But his brokenness became his ministry. And God only knows the impact he has made in the lives of others who were dealing with grief. Jesus can use what we have, even brokenness which seems to be not enough to do miraculous things in the lives of others. Never underestimate the power of not enough. When we place our “not enough,” even our brokenness, in the master’s hand and tell him “Lord, take my pain, my failure, frailties and make it something more.” it is then that our pain, our sorrows, our failures and our losses will become our ministry.

Now let me tell you community the benefits of brokenness. Brokenness causes us to reach out to others. We can walk along beside them because we feel their pain. The word to all of us today is, he broke you to share you.