Blessed, Broken, Then Given....

As they sat down to eat, he took the bread and blessed it. Then he broke it and gave it to them. Luke 24:30-31

Beautiful One, Have You Considered the Blessing of Being Broken?

I think we all can  recall a specific time or place that our spiritual eyes were opened and we truly came to embrace Jesus as Lord. I'm not just talking about realizing Him but embracing Him, coming into an understanding of what our Christian life is all about.  For some us, we can remember vividly being saved from a terrible life of sin, He reached down and plucked us literally from the trash of Hell and he made all things new. For others of us; we were Christians since we were embryo's, we were born into the Church, raised and reared in Christ and we knew Him and served him all our lives, no terrible testimony, just walking with God since we can remember. Still there are others who just happened to stumble upon the Lord, or so they thought, walking along the way of life and God became more than a textbook and sunsets became more than just a pretty picture.

But whether you were raised in the church or just started in one, whether you knew  God all your life or you were just introduced to him, it really doesn't matter, because there is an appointed time for each of us that God begins to reveal himself-  individually and very specifically and He shows up in unexpected places and when no one is looking.

I  remember the day I was saved, and although I understood that I was saved and now heavenbound, it took some time for me to  understand that my life would  undergo seasons and experiences  with God as I walked my salvation out here on earth. I knew Jesus as my Savior, but it took some time for me to truly embrace him as Lord over everything in my life.

He was patient with me as I was getting acquainted with His Word- learning His ways and His voice.  He made sure to place wonderful mentors and Christian siblings in my life to help me along my way. I stumbled more than I stood up, I cried more than I laughed and  I knew frustration more than peace as I was learning how to walk this life out. But God- He blessed me and never left me, and thats what He does, He takes us, and He blesses us and never leaves us. We are in awe of Him, we pray with zeal and excitement and to our astonished hearts He answers and in our favor -imagine that- we find out -this stuff really works!!!

God  makes sure that we taste his wonderful goodness, can you think to a time when you've known the blessing of God? I think we all can and it is so awesome to taste His goodness, his kindness, his tender mercies, and experience the blessing of the Lord.

But then- after we have tasted and experienced this wonderful side of God, after we have walked a little ways with him, He then begins to show us another side of His Goodness, and this side is just as wonderfully Good but it's not the same goodness that we are used to, it is His goodness for our Spiritman who needs to grow up and mature and leave the nest and learn to fly.

Now I dont know when your appointed time is for you to realize this- it varies for each of us but the proclivity we seem to easily have when we do begin this process is we look at it in the natural.

We start to question Gods goodness, how come prayers aren't answered immediately? How come I'm so uncomfortable, how come my circumstances are getting worse not better, I'm his child, I've heard that I have power but where is it and why do I seem to feel lonely all of a sudden? Why is there such resistance, where is all my support? In fact where the heck is God? I don't see him, feel him or hear him anymore-what has gone terribly wrong?
Have you ever experienced these questions?  Maybe you've never admitted it outwardly but inwardly, deep within you, there is a panic that things are not turning out like you thought and you have missed something somewhere.

We start to experience his loving hand poking us in places we don't want him to, circumstances seem to always be presenting themselves,  He starts cutting off of us the dead limbs that are attached  to us- we liked those limbs, they were comfortable and we don't know how to be without them. The hand that we received blessing from is now a sharp double edged chainsaw-cutting us in places that we never dreamed possible, and what about that refiners fire? Isn't that a fun one? Once you have experienced it, you don't quite sing about it so loudly anymore....

And just when we think we couldn't take anymore,  the breath that once breathed life into us is now a blowtorch and we are not only broken, bleeding and in shattered pieces all over the place- now we are melting. What is up with that????

Here we were blessed and doing great, loving God, going to Church, fellowshipping, serving with all our hearts and then all of a sudden we are thrust into a hurricane where everything in our lives is being shaken. We get panicked, we lose our faith, there are alot of tears in these places, we think we are forgotten and forsaken and all of hell is winning against us, BUT what we fail to realize is that He takes us from Glory to Glory and from Strength to Strength, line upon line and my beautiful friend, the truth is; He usually does it through the adverse times we all go through.

Why is it that we can go into Worship and sing and ask Him to "Show Us His Glory" and then when He places us in the very position to be to able to receive it-we kick and scream and fight him every inch of the way? Do we fully realize that to see the Glory of God- there is a process one must undergo -yes oh yes- He is a loving, tender, gentle God but He is also Holy and no flesh should glory in His presence.

This scripture in Luke paints a very accurate portrait of just  what Christ does with us. Christ takes us- like the bread, he takes us to himself and He thanks God for us and  He blesses us- we like that part- it feels good doesn't it? Blessing, Blessing, Blessing -

....BUT THEN HE breaks us- He breaks us into little pieces during different seasons in our lives, he rips our mindsets and agenda's wide open, He breaks those bondages off of us and destroys the yokes around our necks, He is lifting our burdens only -we don't even realize it because we are so used to being weighed down with the sin that so easily entangles that when He starts to untangle it off of us- we think He is  out to destroy us -when in fact He  is setting us free. That furnace of affliction your in, is not to burn you alive but to burn up everything that holds you back.

Beautiful One, we will receive blessing from the Lord throughout our whole life, but the blessings will not always come in the form of a rent check or a new car. The blessing will come as revelation knowledge, it will come as a trial that you endured and came through and  now your heart will  have compassion for others, a blessing can come as you have the divine ability to forgive a  betrayal, maybe you will know the blessing of releasing yourself from an offense, or maybe embracing a wayward child, maybe you will embrace a parent that has abandoned you, maybe we will experience the blessing of being a blessing. You know it's not all about us....

During the brokeness we learn how to truly seek our Father, we learn how to graduate from a kindergarden faith class, we learn how to not rely on man to help us, although relationships are vital and a neccesity-sometimes we rely on others more than God. How many times have you looked for God to send somebody to help you? I guess I need to share this with you in case you havent heard- but no one is coming, YOU ARE the body He has sent. You are the one you've been looking for.

He knows the integrity He has placed in you, He knows the mighty warrior that lies within you-
....And there is a time for you to know it too.

Are the mountaintops as beautiful unless we truly know what it cost us to get there?

We will know blessing and we also will know brokeness but when we submit and stop asking WHY and start asking What am I to learn from this, we then can get through it  and finally be given to others.

There is someone out there who needs to know that they are not alone, they need to hear only the message you can tell them- they need to know they will make it through, they need to know that during those long, cold, dark, winter months that spring is on it's way and the SON will shine once again.

The whole point of being blessed and broken is to make you and I fit to BE GIVEN to a lost and hurting world and who better to tell them than one who has been there themselves?

Beautiful One,  Just Believe and Cherish The Blessing of Being Broken So You Can Be Given.....