Nov 8

Broken Pottery

“I have become like broken pottery.” Psalm 31:12

God does not wish to break us that we might lay there as useless vessels. He breaks us that He might reshape us that we might become vessels to bring Him glory and honor. Why does God use the breaking process in our lives? He wishes to remove from us all traces of  self-reliance and replace it with total reliance on Him! The breaking process is a painful one if we resist Him, but if we yield to Him, the breaking will be swift, the pain minimal and the results, glorious. Once we are stripped of our need to control the situation, we can be used to bring Him glory and honor. This was the process that all of those the Lord used in a mighty way went through. If we wish to be used of the Lord, we need to be broken as they were. Think about Moses, Peter, and Paul. Each of them went through breaking experiences so that their self-reliance might be removed and they could serve Him in a mighty way. Moses attempted to help his people and murdered an Egyptian. The Lord sent Moses into the wilderness for forty years and there Moses was broken of his self-reliance and He became a mighty leader for God. He is known as the meekest man in all the earth, but he would not have been so without those wilderness experiences. Peter defied Jesus’ judgment on a number of occasions. He would never let Jesus die! He would never let Jesus wash his feet! He would never deny him! The Lord needed to break Peter of his pride and self-reliance so that He might use Peter to spread the Gospel. The same is true of Paul, it was through the trial of partial sight that the Lord made Paul dependent on Him and not on his education and standing in the Jewish community. Paul was able to consider all that as “dung” compared with the glory of knowing Christ. Let us start looking differently at the breaking experiences in our lives. See them as a process that God uses to strip away the sins in our lives that makes us unusable to Him and we will realize that the outcome will be for God’s glory and honor. There is a blessing in brokenness. 

Thank you, Lord, that You love me enough to break me. Help me to depend on You totally. Help me to become wholly reliant on You. Help me to give up my need to control that I might bring You glory and honor today! Amen