When Brokenness is the Beginning

“... let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.”

~James 1:4 (NRSV)

The greatest paradox in the world is that only from comprehensive brokenness is there a full and fresh beginning. And the beauty of life is that it provides us ample opportunity, and each day may be seen as one, where our brokenness can be transformed into something magnificently beautiful. But not without simple surrender.

When we are broken we become strangely honest. When we are honest we are reachable. When we are reachable God speaks into our lives, we listen, we learn, and we apply. The darkest end created the brightest beginning.

The Basic Beauty Of Weakness

Many programs, like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Celebrate Recovery, have majored on the Gospel fact that in weakness there is matchless strength.

Perhaps one of the reasons weakness can be turned to strength is the fellowship-safety in numbers and sponsorship support provident of these programs.

But we must continue to herald the majesty of weakness. That, in our depression and our anxiousness and within our general lethargy, we find hope when we least expect it; by surrendering all our feelings in honesty, and actively, to God.

When we have nothing more to lose we have so much more to gain.

Even after a day or two onward of the fresh beginning we feel more hopeful and light flourishes within our souls. Our acknowledged weakness has facilitated strength.

God’s Work In Progress

When we let endurance have its full effect, and even as we endure in our weakness before the strength comes, we forge the character capacity that will power us through when the strength comes. And, as we wait, see, it comes!

In the beginning is all the potential in the world. God proves this in the creation account. Before day one, when there was no evidence for created order, nothing of this potential was visible. As for us, our potential for strength may lay dormant. But we can know that the passage to strength is through the gaudy gates of weakness.

When we let endurance have its full effect, we understand, afresh, that God has, in us, a work in progress.

God reminds us when we endure our hardships, and in coming home to acknowledge our brokenness, that the present challenges are facilitating our faith. And by enduring our hardships only so long in our own strength do we surrender in our weakness to God. When we do this we remind ourselves that we are, still, a work in progress.

The purpose of life is preparation for eternity. We will be just right, mature and complete, when we reach there.

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Brokenness can be a beautiful thing to look back on. It was the start of something truly miraculous—where God became our solidarity of strength in our rock bottom weakness. Our maturity is facilitated never better than by accepting our ongoing brokenness.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.