Friday, May 18, 2018

Broken Pieces

Friday, May 18, 2018
The Lord looks down from heaven and sees the whole human race.  From his throne he observes all who live on the earth.  He made their hearts, so he understands everything they do.  Psalm 33:12-15(NLT)
A fellow Pastor wrote a post on Facebook yesterday that got my attention.  He shared a recent experience of noticing the individual “broken” pieces of glass in a church window.  It is true that God takes our broken pieces and makes of our shattered lives a picture we could never have imagined.  Truthfully, when I think of this in the context of my own circumstances there are so many applications it is difficult to choose any one direction in which to reflect:
·      Do I think about the brokenness of my past, present, or future?
·      Shall I focus on my ground-level view, or God’s aerial panorama?
·      Do I think in terms of the constant battle between good and evil?
·      Dare I even mention the brokenness of churches caught in scandal, nepotism, individualism, heresy, and the like?
·      Can I view the montage of crushed shards of families, government, plans, dreams, bullet-ridden schools, and all the other devastation in life that forms our ground-zeroes?
There are certainly a lot of broken pieces in human experience.  And yet, in the hands of a master artisan, they form such interesting and beautiful finished works.  It is always amazing to me that God fashions the greatest blessings out of our most excruciating moments. 
As C.S. Lewis reminds us, God whispers to us in our joy, and shouts to us in our pain.  And, if there is such a connection between our pain and the Master’s paint brush, perhaps we can use my colleague’s imagery with “broken glass windows” to stretch the metaphor a little farther down the road.

What if the broken stuff isn’t random at all?

Seriously; what if there’s a plan to all our pain?  What if God actually planned it that way?  Wait a minute, here, Russell; you’re getting weird on me…how could a loving God inflict pain on those He loves?
Well, consider the broken pieces of that stained glass window; are they random?  Not if you ask my bride.  She spent many hours crafting stained glass projects, and, although she doesn’t have the artistry of God, every piece she placed in a window or frame was cut with skill and design to fit into the picture; better, to create the picture that was in her mind.  She planned those cuts, scored the glass, and purposefully “broke” them to suit her plan.
Now, there may be holes in my thinking here, and I’d love for anyone to straighten me out if you see a cloud in all this.  But, I’m thinking God not only uses our pain, struggles, and sinfulness to create a stronger “us” – I’m willing to at least entertain the thought that sometimes He plans it that way. 
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.  Romans 8:28(NLT)
Now for just one more little stretch on this thought – God did that for His own Son too! 
·      The cross, more painful than anything we’ve ever known…
·      The sins of the world, more stressful and shameful than our divorces, betrayals, and killings…
·      Three days in a borrowed grave, the reputation of an executed criminal…
Tell me God didn’t plan that!
For You Today
Whatever brokenness you’ve got going on, or the painful memory of some sharp, shattered hope that never quite worked-out, or the devastation of a clear window to the future that now lies in a gazillion pieces on the floor of God’s workshop…remember, He’s got this; and He’s up to something beautiful in your day.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy Pixabay.com

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