Life of the Beloved: Broken

The Life of the Beloved is a life of being chosen, blessed, broken, and given. Today we consider he most difficult of those four: brokenness.

Of all the quotes attributed the Scripture that aren’t actually in Scripture, like “God helps those who help themselves” or “God works in mysterious ways,” here’s one that is close to an actual verse, but can lead us down a very different path:

“God will never give you more than you can handle” is not in Scripture.

Here’s where this phrase likely originated:

“No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

The misattributed quote is too often used during times of suffering, but God does not promise that suffering will not happen. When we use this phrase to try and comfort another or ourselves, the danger is that, at some point, suffering can be overwhelming. In those times, are we being unfaithful to the God who “will never give you more than you can handle”? If this phrase makes us think of suffering – that God will not allow suffering to be overwhelming – it is unhelpful.

1 Corinthians 10:13 is not talking about suffering, but about temptation. There is no temptation – no “testing” as the NRSV translates it – that will be too great for you. With God, we can overcome temptation – God will “provide the way out.” The main distinction is that temptation comes down to a choice while suffering takes away choice.

(See this article for more thoughts on that)

“God will never give you more than you can handle” and other unbiblical thoughts like it can give us the temptation to think that suffering should not happen to good or godly people. More dangerously, it makes us think that suffering means that we are disobeying God (notice how quickly some pin natural disasters on certain ‘unfaithful’ groups). But God does not promise an escape from suffering; God promises to be with us always in the midst of suffering (see Isaiah 40:10 or 43:2; Psalm 46:1 or 147:3; Zephaniah 3:17; John 16:33). Look back at 1 Corinthians 13:10, especially the italicized portion. How does that sentence start? “God is faithful…”

To help us understand the presence of suffering in the life of the beloved, Henri Nouwen calls this reality “brokenness.” We are chosen, blessed, broken, and given.

In our brokenness, we see God’s presence and help in different ways than when everything is going well. In our brokenness, we see our need to rely on God rather than on ourselves. In our brokenness, God lifts us up and saves us from the thoughts that we can do it by ourselves with just the help of our bootstraps.

Here are some analogies that I find helpful to understand brokenness:

The first is one I came up with in high school, when I was equal parts inquisitive Christian and a wannabe jock with weightlifting on the mind: Our faith is like a muscle. In order to build up muscles, they need to be broken down first through weightlifting. Then, the muscles use amino acids to repair. In the repairing, the muscles grow bigger and stronger. That process does not happen without the initial brokenness. (This may be helpful to some, and it may cause some eye rolls in others. Give teenager meathead Drew some grace).

The second one I did not come up with, so it’s already much better than the first: kintsugi, which means “golden joinery” in Japanese. This is the method of repairing broken pottery by using gold or other precious metals to bind the shards back together. This does two things. First, it shows that repairing brokenness is not something to cover up, but to display as beautiful. Second, it adds value to the piece because the binding agent, gold, is more valuable than the clay.

God is the great potter and we are the clay (see Isaiah 64:8). But we, as God’s pottery, can still break. Using the second analogy of faith, we see that God is also the great kintsugi artist, taken the shards of our brokenness and putting us back together, more beautiful and better than before.

The third analogy is also one I did not come up with, but we can find in Scripture (Psalm 32:9). This is a different type of brokenness, that of “breaking” a wild horse. Obedience to God – being broken in this sense – is the greatest form of freedom, because it allows us to live our fullest lives (“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” – Jesus in John 10:10).

These analogies help us reframe the idea of brokenness. But, it’s still a difficult concept to accept. This is where the order of Nouwen’s book comes into play. God does not allow us to become broken without first blessing us. Chosen, blessed, then broken. God blesses us first with presence and love, grace and mercy, forgiveness and wholeness. And God promises to be with us in the midst of being broken.

Many of us are hurting in this covid-19 era. Just in our little congregation, we have people experiencing the physical pain of having coronavirus, the financial pain of losing work, the social pain of being separated, and the emotional/mental/spiritual pain that comes from all this pain in us and around us combined.

Remember this: God is with you in the midst of suffering, brokenness. God has blessed you. God will continue to bless you. If you use this time period to lean into God more closely, to depend on God more deeply, you will find greater peace and comfort than when things were “normal.” It doesn’t mean that things will be easy, or that the stress and pain of the present situation will just disappear. It doesn’t mean that we become blissfully ignorant of what’s going on in us and around us.

It does mean that you will come to recognize God’s presence in new and impactful ways. It does means that you will depend on and obey God deeper. It does mean that in all of this, you will still find the abundant life promised by Jesus.

Brokenness is not a curse. It is painful, yes. But combined with God’s presence and blessing, brokenness is a reality of life that can actually bring us closer to God and to a fuller realization of our belovedness because we get to see how God will put it all back together better and stronger than before.