Well, why would a man check into a hospital and allow the surgeon to start cutting? Because he knows that surgery is the only way to experience healing and to be physically restored. What makes a woman willing to endure long hours of intense labor? She knows that beyond the labor there will be the joy of a new life.
So why would anyone choose the pathway of brokenness?Because brokenness brings blessedness.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3 NKJV). Contrary to what we would expect, brokenness is the pathway to blessing! The very thing we dread and are tempted to resist is actually the means to God’s greatest blessings in our lives.
What kinds of blessings does brokenness bring?
God draws near. Again and again in Scripture, we learn that God “resists the proud” (Proverbs 3:34; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). The concept here is that God sets Himself in “battle array” against those who are proud. He stiff-arms the arrogant, keeping them at a distance. He repels those who are self-sufficient and who take unholy pride in their accomplishments.
On the other hand, God pours grace on the humble. He comes to the rescue of the humble. Like an ambulance racing to the scene in response to a call for help, so God races to the scene when His children humble themselves and acknowledge their need.
New life is released. Jesus understood something that His disciples would not grasp until after His death, resurrection, and ascension back into heaven—something the Bible calls a “mystery.” This mystery is that death brings life, and that there can be no real life apart from our willingness to die (John 12:24).
What does this kind of death mean? It means that we must be willing to die to our own interests, reputation, rights, ways of doing things, comfort, convenience, hopes, dreams, and aspirations. To die means to lay it all down, to give it all up, to let it all go.
This may seem difficult, perhaps even unthinkable, to our self-protective, individualistic, rights-oriented minds. But as Jesus went on to tell His disciples, “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25).
What was Jesus saying? The only way to gain your life is to give it up. The only way to win it is to lose it. We think we are giving up so much by dying. But in reality, it is those who refuse to die who are giving up everything. When we choose the pathway of brokenness and humility, we are choosing to receive new life—His supernatural, abundant life—flowing in and through us.
We are able to experience deeper love and deeper worship. So many of us are bound up when it comes to our ability to express love and worship. And this is odd, because many of us have no difficulty cheering until we’re hoarse at a ballgame.
Why is it so hard for us to express our love and worship? Perhaps it is because we still have the “roof on” and the “walls up.” Pride causes us to erect barriers between ourselves and God, and walls between ourselves and others. It makes us so concerned about what others think that we are imprisoned to our inhibitions.
True worship begins with brokenness and humility over whatever God reveals to us in His Word. Poverty of spirit and mourning over our sin lead to genuine repentance, which in turn leads to forgiveness. Forgiveness will produce freedom from guilt and bondage.
When we have freedom that has been birthed out of brokenness, repentance, and forgiveness, we will have a greater capacity for love and for worship. And of course, true love and worship will lead us back to a new level of brokenness.
Brokenness is the starting place for a lifelong cycle. We cannot experience true freedom, love, and worship if we do not enter by way of humility, repentance, and forgiveness. In a sense, revival is really nothing more than the release of God’s Spirit flowing through broken lives.