For the person who doesn’t feel worthy of God’s relentless love or for the person who needs the reminder that it’s okay to be broken, this is for you. In a world full of competition, interviews, and status, it’s hard to feel truly known. People paint an image of who they think we are, or ought to be, without looking deep inside our hearts. However, maybe some of us don’t want to be fully known because the road leads to regret, shame, and shattered pieces. Covering up or sin may look better on the outside, but slowly suffocates us on the inside.
Even if we never share the extent of our heart with others, God already knows. You can’t hide a single aspect of your life from God. He knows everything about us; in fact, He created each of us. Between the good, the bad, and the ugly, He knows it all. It can be unnerving that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords knows my deepest and darkest regrets, thoughts, and desires.
YET He still longs for us to be His children and wants to use us to advance the Gospel. He wants to use a broken, powerless, ordinary individuals to share His glory, love, and grace. He wants to use you and me to proclaim the best story ever, His story of redemption. There’s no better way for Him to share His story of redemption than to use the people He has redeemed.
Don’t believe me? Let me tell you about a guy named David…
David grew up as a shepherd, fought a giant, and became a king; he was called by God. Like all of us, David has sin in his life he was ashamed of. He committed adultery with a woman named Bathsheba. Then, David had Bathsheba’s husband strategically placed in battle where he would be killed. David tried to erase his sin and hide it from everybody, like most of us do. Of course, God already knew and pursued Him in the brokenness.
In the book of Psalms, David writes about committing adultery with Bathsheba in chapter 51. David cries out to God and states, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me… restore to me the joy of your salvation.” David prayerfully offers his brokenness to God so that He may restore, heal, and redeem. David began to understand that God would never turn His back, even at our ugliest sins.
David wrote over 70 Psalms. He expresses how God will never leave or abandon us no matter how consumed in sin we are. When God feels far, it’s usually because we’re the ones trying to hide certain areas of our lives and aren’t intentionally communicating with Him. There is rescue in confessing sin, redemption to coming broken, and freedom to walking in His love.
If you feel like God could never forgive you for the sins you have committed, He has! God sent His son Jesus to cover our sin and shame once and for all. When we accept Jesus into our lives, and truly come to a place of repentance, our scarlett letters become as white as snow. If you feel like you must be completely broken-free before coming to Jesus, news flash, you will never reach that point. We are made of flesh and sinful desires; we will never be perfect. I have good news though. Psalm 34:18 declares that “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” He is close to the broken and works in our weaknesses. If we were perfect, we wouldn’t need Jesus to begin with.
Let God use your brokenness to display His redemptive, glorious spirit.
The Joyful Journey 