Brokenness – the Qualifier of Salvation

In a field of understanding—“salvation”—which ought have no qualifiers—because it is God’s gift to humankind, through the sacrifice of his only Son—there is one qualifier for true salvation.

Many have tried without it. I have. I tried for 13 years in my own strength; I never ‘got’ it. Not until my life had become smashed to smithereens on the jagged rocks of marital rejection did I come to comprehend, that, for me, I couldn’t experience the salvation of God until I was heartrendingly broken.

What promised to be the worst thing I could have possibly imagined turned out to be the best thing. Not that I can say that without feeling for my children and their loss. That is the only downside. Still, they have recovered the best I could have hoped.

But I did not know true life until nearly 10 years ago now. Up until then I was still a shadow of a person; a shadow of the real me. The real ‘me’ desired to be authentic, but my shadow blocked the passage of the courage I needed just to be myself, to be vulnerable, and to be able to fully trust God, especially in the midst of my relationships.

The Tenuous Subject of Salvation

In speaking of qualifiers for salvation I am aware I tread on tremulous territory. Who am I, or anybody else for that matter, to judge who is saved and who isn’t? Only a person themselves, and God, could know.

But I see so much now about salvation—the actual experience as it manifests in everyday life—as I come to understand that salvation is not just a stake in the ground. It’s a never-ending race, one day at a time.

Having been broken, and I mean really broken, to the point where there was nothing left as I kneeled before the cross, knowing that was the only way forward—the only way out—I was saved; through the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to take my sin upon himself, forever stifling its veneer power.

To know the end has come, and a new life is our only hope; that, for me, is salvation.

When everything else pales into insignificance, and no one can reconcile our understanding but God himself, we stand qualified, well positioned no less, to receive the grace that was always destined for us.

From my vantage point I cannot see how we could see what we need to receive, let alone receive it, if we haven’t had a season, which led to a climaxing moment, where all there was, was God.

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Brokenness is the qualifier of salvation. The more broken we have become, the more hope we have in experiencing this salvation from God alone. Salvation is for the weak, not the strong, but, through it, the weak are made stronger than the strong. They, in their continued brokenness, have God’s unfathomable power and nothing can touch it.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.