Everyone has heard the expression, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." The good Lord does not adhere to that advice. In fact, He most often breaks us in order to fix us, even when we think we're running along smoothly in life. I am currently in this process, and I don't care for it much. It seems this breaking process is cyclical and difficult, and I'm the one who makes it difficult because I resist. It's not that God doesn't like or love me as I am. It's just that He knows I can be better.
Looking back over my life, I see a pattern of these breaking times, and they usually occur just when I get to the point that I like and accept the finished result of the previous breaking. Comfort. Not a word Christians should really want in their vocabulary because comfort is fleeting for the Christian. The sermon today was on following Jesus. If you're comfortable, can you really be following? I'm not too sure that it's possible. I believe you can be content to follow, and should be content following Him. After all, He is all we need, right? So contentment is good, being comfortable is not. Walking in someone else's shoes should never feel comfortable. It should feel uncomfortable. Perhaps God breaks us, so that those shoes don't get comfortable for us, and He does it at just the precise moment we begin to feel comfortable. New shoes, new direction His son takes for us to follow, or new things for us to do for His kingdom that might cause incredible discomfort.
I'm getting married in just over four months. I'll have a new husband and stepson. I'm moving to a new town where I know probably 5 people, if that. Let's not even mention the job search I'll have (nothing with time off as sweet as I have now, that's for sure). I'm leaving the church family I've had for 12 years now. Finding a new church is no easy task. I've got a lot of breaking going on.
I've been single, and living with just my children, since 2003. That's a long time, and I'm a bit set in my ways. I have to be willing to compromise some of those ways, and that'll be fine. With three young children, you get pretty easy-going about stuff like that. A certain amount of pride accumulates when you're a single mother. And not the kind of pride you want to have. It's almost boastful. When I got divorced, I wanted to avoid this at all cost. It accumulated anyway, however, and I didn't realize it until the last few days. I'd gotten very used to taking care of the kids and myself, doing everything on my own (I even patched drywall and fixed my piano and moved heavy furniture and everything). When you're married, though, it's not about doing everything on your own. Spouses lean on and help each other. I have a very "I can do it myself" demeanor. That demeanor has to be broken, and it's being broken right now. It hurts. It's humbling. I don't like it, but how could I possibly be a good wife and mother if I don't go through it? I am, once again, going to be a helper to a wonderful man, and God is simply making me a suitable helper for him (Genesis 2:18).
There are many other things in me that need to be broken in order for me to achieve my goal of being a Proverbs 31 wife (this has always been a goal of mine, but cut short upon divorce. God has renewed this goal for me). In the difficult process of God breaking me to make me what I should be for my soon-to-be husband and our children, I will become a better follower of Jesus. Funny how the Father can fulfill two purposes at once. Being broken won't be comfortable (and isn't), that's for sure, but by keeping my eyes on Jesus, following Him, perhaps I won't notice it so much. By making Jesus my treasure, everything else I desire to be for Him, and for my family, will fall into place in His time. And because following Jesus is, as Pastor Dave said, evangelistic in nature, my experiences over the last several years in being broken and made whole again just might help someone else going through the same thing.
