Practice what you preach

This past Sunday, I had the honor and privilege of facilitating teaching/discussion for the Church.

There was something I thought God had laid on my heart for some time to teach, and I was glad that He (through others) provided a venue for doing so (maybe I'll talk more about that in another post).

The subject of the teaching: An Elementary Introduction to Brokenness.

I think the teaching was really well received. I've been encouraged by the feedback the saints have given me, and I can see in people's eyes that they benefited. But I think too much credit is going to me, and I am not just saying that to be humble. Much of the credit goes to the Church. People not only showed up (I think we had 25 adults crammed into Chris and Maria's living room), but they came as priests. 

I really had as a goal to make it more discussion oriented than lecture oriented, but I must say I was somewhat astonished by people's willingness to share thoughts, ideas, stories, examples, questions, etc. The best way to describe it: there was life in the room. Christ was there, Christ was shared, and I was simply helping to facilitate the dialogue.

That's not to say that I did not have specific things to share. You can download my notes by clicking here.

But notes cannot capture what happened Sunday morning. Some things on my notes we never talked about. Other things that are briefly mentioned in the notes were the core of the discussion.

In a nutshell, we talked about:

• The differences between mature and immature Christians
• Three verses (Job 1:6-12; Matthew 16:21-25, and Acts 9:1-17)
• What brokenness is: breaking us of our independence so we can purely rely on the life of Jesus in us
• How God breaks us: suffering
• Why God breaks us: not for suffering's sake, but because of His love and desire to be one with us
• Why it has to be through brokenness: we have completely underestimated the fall of man
• What happens during brokenness: our soul learns to "hand over the reins" to the spirit; God's spirit expresses Himself through our soul (personality) and through our body

 We also discussed three things we can do to become broken:

1. Receive everything from Him (big or small, receive it from the hand of God)
2. Turn to Him (as the loving Father who is with us, loves us, and feels our pain)
3. Have no expectations (for the specific outcome - in other words, it is one thing to believe God will be faithful, but it is another to believe God has to be faithful in this specific way or that we will become superspiritual after the brokenness period is over)

I then shared three rules of brokenness:

1. The rule of speed
   • We cannot speed up God's work in breaking us, but we can surely slow it down by rejecting Him
2. The rule of age
   • Like it or not, brokenness comes with age, experience, and wisdom (but you can and should begin as young as you like!)
3. The rule of size
   • Brokenness comes through big crises in our lives, but God can use anything, no matter how small, to break us (if we will let Him).  He loves us too much to waste anything.

We ended with some stories. Mary and the breaking of the jar to anoint Jesus. Todd's testimony that he had shared with me before the teaching. And how God used the shattering of a coffee pot to bring me to the end of myself (momentarily) one Sunday afternoon.

At the end, I handed out Brokenness Packets to be opened when someone was going through such. The packets contained a few verses that Jeff shared with me once when I was down (I call them the "When the world is falling apart" verses).  The other thing in the packet was a CD of songs that really touched me in moments of brokenness.

Little did I know that God was preparing me to practice what I preached. The next day, a certain measure of trauma touched my life (and therefore Amanda's life, and therefore the Church's life). It has shaken Amanda and me to the core. We have weeped, and we have had moments of sheer despair.

But you know what? Jesus has done a lot for us in these last few days. He has eaten with us (Michael, Amy, Jackson, Erin, Mark, Jeff), come over to visit (Jeff, Patrick), called (Erin, Kim, Maria, Chris, Francis, Ravi), texted (Nan), emailed (Jeff, Michael, Erin), invited us over (Chris, Maria) and prayed (insert your name here).

We feel surrounded by darkness, and yet we can still see the Light. Even in our tears, we confess the goodness of God and authentic hope. And it's not coming from "this is what good Christians are supposed to do in bad times." No! It's coming from knowing Jesus and being a part of His Body.

Jesus has surrounded us. We're trapped. We cannot escape. We cannot help but be encouraged (even when, at times, we do not even want to be encouraged). We believe. We believe. We believe.

Like it or not, trying or not, we believe.

Comments

[andrea_jennine]

I don't know the details, but please know I'll be praying for you guys!

[Maria]

good stuff. praying. praying specifically. wish there were an "easy" button for brokenness. thanks for being obedient in it all. the teaching on Sunday was FANTASTIC. The reminder about body, soul, and spirit really spoke to me. we are for you and amanda no matter what. we will trust our provider to provide. He is good.

[aaron]

Hurting with you, my brother. Thank God for God.

psalm 81:10