Broken and Beautiful

Aren't you glad God isn't a perfectionist? Now before you get your theological nose bent out of shape ... let me say --- I believe he is perfect ... but I believe he is not a perfectionist. In the human definition of 'perfectionist' ... intolerant of failure, intolerant of weakness, intolerant of anything but 'Plan A', of the grays in life ... you get the idea. Sad that many of us are taught when we're young that God is this kind of father. 'If you don't behave .... Why, I'll ....' He is so unfairly represented by people who obviously don't know him as well as they may claim ...All you have to do is look at the people he chose to highlight in his book of 'characters' ... The Bible... 

....Moses, who told God 'I know you created me, but I'm just not good enough' -- to his face ... in refusal of a direction God had face-to-face just given him! Moses - a murderer ... and he lived in shame until God changed his heart. 

....Elijah - the great profit of God, who would lose all his nerve and run and hide under a bush afraid of his enemy! He would learn that God would protect him... 

....Peter, the one on whom God 'built his church' and his famous denial! 'I don't know Jesus!' ... would later give up his life for the cause of Christ.

...But my favourite ... David ... King David ... able leader, gifted, inspired by God ... guilty of adultery, murder among a few things. But God called him 'A man after (or striving to be like) God's own heart' ... I believe David understood the true nature of God ... his perfection, with Grace... 

....All of these were highlighted in the Bible, why? Because God wanted us to see how he can use the lives of those that are broken ... guilty ... imperfect ...

Think about it ... when are you most inspired? Hearing how some perfect athlete lost 10 pounds, or how a 300 pound man fought hard through his food addictions to loose 50? Aren't you moved when you hear the stories of people just like you and I who blew it, lost it

.... but got up and started again ...

Proverbs 24:16 says it this way 'No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don't stay down long; Soon they're up on their feet' The Message Version or more familiar (New Living Version) 'The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.'

....Isn't it amazing, and encouraging to think that according to how God sees things --- he doesn't focus on my failures, rather after we fall he asks 'But did you get back up?' That is what HE considers 'righteous'... 

....To God --- brokenness is beautiful. It's something he can more easily work with than ability and talent ...

Some situations I've lived through in the past few years, that I've shared in these blogs (my divorce, loss of friends, loss of family) had left scars on me that I immediately wasn't ready to look at, nor deal with. Even though it would be the best thing for me to allow God to heal them ... I simply wasn't ready. And he understood, though gently leading me anyway.

When I first heard this song - it came to my heart more as a wish 'God could that really be how you see me? Broken yes, but beautiful?'

God has allowed me time ... and started me on a process that brought me as much to a place of giving grace, as grace has been given to me .......

As I am re-acquainting myself with the Grace God has applied to all that I've failed at, I am remembering those who hurt me ... and how perhaps the things they did - are out of their own brokenness. If God could give me grace.... how can I do anything else but give them the same? 

....'I thank you God for all the brokenness in my life ... I thank you because it shatters MY supposed perfection ... and allows your grace and love to flow through my cracks!'.... 

Mark Schultz - Broken and Beautiful

From the album Broken and Beautiful 

There's a businessman, there's a widowed wife
A smiling face with a shattered life
A teenage girl with a choice to make
It's crowded here in church today

And the preacher says as the sermon ends
'Please close your eyes, bow your heads
Is there anyone in need of prayer,
Oh Jesus wants to meet you here'

Cause we all fall short, and we all have sinned
But when you let, God's grace break in

(Chorus) 

It's Beautiful, Beautiful
Come as you are
Surrender your heart
Broken and beautiful 

Well he'd never been to church before
But he came today as a last resort
His world was crashing in
And he was suffocating in his sin

But tears rolled down as hope rushed in
He closed his eyes, raised his hands
Worshipping the God who can
Bring him back to life again

(Chorus)
And it's beautiful, beautiful
Come as you are
Surrender your heart
Broken and beautiful, beautiful
Come as you are
Surrender your heart
Broken and beautiful 

Cause there's nothing more beautiful at all
Than when His sons and daughters call, broken

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Come as you are
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Come as you are

(Chorus) 
Broken and beautiful, beautiful
Come as you are
Surrender your heart
Broken and beautiful, beautiful
Come as you are
Surrender your heart
Broken and beautiful 
Come as you are
Broken and beautiful, beautiful
Come as you are
Surrender your heart 

Broken and beautiful
Broken and beautiful
Broken and beautiful
Beautiful

Original Date: March 11, 2007