Brokenness

“God is free and cannot be expected to behave in a predictable manner (known to us). We can expect certain things according to His promise, but even those things remain largely hidden. For example, we can trust that He is always at all times and in all things working for our salvation, our true communion with Him and healing from the ravages of our brokenness. But we are creatures who dream of being gods, though entering by a false door. Rather than being raised up and conformed to God’s image by the ineffable working of His grace, we prefer to make little god-lets of ourselves and becoming masters of our lives. Cause and effect is the demon that ever waits at that very point.” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“The roots of human brokenness run so deep within us that it is illusory to look for healing through conventional political and social reform, or even through moral proclamations. Those who long for a return to an imagined ideal of perfection from previous decades or centuries are guilty of indulging in sentimentalism. What human beings need is not merely for a certain side to win a culture war, but for human persons to acquire purity of heart as they become radiant with the divine energies—and that acquisition requires the reorientation of our deepest desires to their ultimate fulfillment in God.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)

“This came powerfully to mind…as I sang the verse praising the awful, precious wounds of Christ…I realized that…the vine cross in its fecundity shows us how to understand suffering, how to actually embrace Christ’s scars… and with them our own. What’s astonishing about those scars is not their horror, the massive suffering they represent. We need not stand in awe of what is wrought by evil. What we stand in awe of is…that these horrific things - nail holes in a human hand, the slicing of a spear through tender flesh, the grief of Christ sweating and shuddering on the cross, His endurance of human anguish in all its forms - have become the site of God’s arrival in the darkness. The…things that Satan meant to obliterate the reality of divine affection have become the occasion of God’s most passionate declaration of love. Even those scars in the hands of Jesus, an emblem of the worst that hatred can accomplish, have become an eternal emblem of the un-defeatable love of God. As may our scars as well.” (Sarah Clarkson)

“Have we ever felt truly broken in our prayers? Have we ever scraped the depths of our heart and found ourselves so fallen, and so powerless that we didn’t even have any substantial words to give to the Lord, we didn’t even have the power to lift our eyes to the heavens…As if we felt the weight of our sins and felt like we were standing completely naked and exposed before God. That is a feeling of true vulnerability, and true weakness. And it turns out that this is exactly the mindset and the condition of the heart that will provoke a response from our God. “A broken and humble heart, God will not despise…we see a man who did nothing short of unlock the kingdom of heaven! He captured God’s heart! He stole God’s attention. He made himself like a beggar and God rewarded him richly…the publican reminds us of what it really takes not only to become holy but to bring healing to the world around us. Because he unlocked the kingdom, he was healed. When we learn to truly pray, everything is restored in life.” (Fr. James Guirguis) 

“Sometimes when I am feeling especially broken, when the weight of life’s circumstances feel like they are ready break me, I remember this: ‘The Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-24)…Jesus allowed Himself to be broken so that He could heal our own brokenness through our union with Him.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)

“Just as God sent Jesus back into the world with his wounds, so we are sent into each day with our wounds…Jesus His followers with their wounds to use their wounds to heal, just as He used his wounds to heal. Using our wound is a way to grow in love. This is because the wound abides in us whether life is difficult and sad or centered and joyful, and so we are ready to love others in whatever state they happen to be…As the coming one, Jesus always appears with his wounds. The Messiah's wounds are an essential part of his story. Isaiah t'was foretold it. In the longest of what we now call Isaiah's servant songs, passages that predict in great detail Jesus' passion, we are told that by his wounds, we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).” (Rev. Christopher H. Martin)

“There are not infrequent attempts to create an antinomy of the theology of the Cross and a theology of glory. It is a false distinction when we understand that Christ Crucified is the revelation of the glory of God. It is not just seen in the Cross. There is an unrelenting theme throughout Scripture in which God accomplishes His work through that which is least and broken. Whether it is choosing the second son rather than the first, Joseph as slave and prisoner to be first in Egypt, Moses who stutters when he speaks, young David rather than his brothers, Israel itself as an insignificant nation, Abraham and Sarah who are too old to have children, and so on, the pattern is clear. Mary the Mother of God says it well in her hymn of praise: He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)” (Father Stephen Freeman)

“…pain is hard, having needs is hard, even being yourself is hard. But often, not until we slow down in order to be present with our vulnerability can the Lord begin to reach us in our weakness, pain, and brokenness. As St. Paul so movingly put it, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).” (Robin Phillips)

“We must face the reality of our own brokenness, if we are ever to acquire faith necessary to embrace our salvation…Seeing our own brokenness more clearly should help us grow in in patience and understanding for our neighbors, especially those who have wronged us.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)

“God in Christ has taken into Himself the brokenness of the human condition. Hence, human woundedness, brokenness, death itself are transformed from dead ends to doorways into Life. In the divinizing humanity of Christ, bruises become balm…God meets the human condition where it stands most in need, in its poverty and brokenness…The indwelling presence of Christ, the fragrant grains of wounded incense, makes our poverty rich and our brokenness whole.” (Martin Laird)

“Brokenness is never an easy experience…There is no other way into the deep things of God but a broken spirit.” (Michael Youssef, Smith Wigglesworth)

“Until we can honestly accept the broken reality of our lives and desire our true humanity and natural movement toward God, our lives will remain in this downward spiral.” (Kevin Scherer)

“God-dependence only begins when self-dependence ends. And self-dependence only comes to its end, with some of us, when sorrow, suffering, affliction, broken plans and hopes bring us to that place of self-helplessness and defeat.” (Miles Stanford)

“The Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-24)…Jesus allowed Himself to be broken so that He could heal our own brokenness through our union with Him.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)

“I am in love with how God loves our messy world. In all our sloppy journeys, soul-worn seasons, good intentions gone belly-up, in all our stubborn tenacity to find the gold at the end of the rainbow, we are, every one of us, at some point, just messy people. You can dress us up and parade us around, but hidden under our well-coifed exteriors often lies a soul in disarray. Yet we are loved. Loved in spite of our messy lives. Loved in the midst of them. Loved through the very places that cannot be explained away.” (Bonnie Keen)

“The Lord Jesus reveals that seeing God belongs only to “the pure in heart” (Mt 5:8) – those whose egos are so broken through purification, repentance, and poverty that God can reveal Himself to them.” (OCPM 10/12/2017)

“Brokenness causes us to persevere in prayer.” (Tim Walter)

“Peter is emblematic of each of us…He wishes for each of us to come face to face with the brokenness in our lives and admit to the distorted persons we’ve become. Each of us has a real history of self-love and treason against God. We have denied God in our actions, words, and thoughts…We are all broken. Let’s allow God’s grace to heal us and makes us like Himself.” (Kevin Scherer, Father Barnabas Powell)

“If we conceal our wounds, out of fear or shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others…When we surrender our suffering and brokenness to God, we are on the path to wisdom and might.” (Brennan Manning, Marlena Graves)

“God is a specialist at making something useful and beautiful out of something broken and confused.” (Charles Swindoll)

“The constant bombardment of images shapes the perceptions of a whole generation and results in altered beliefs and lifestyles that make even the aberrant seem normal." (Ravi Zacharias)

“Does any we need any more evidence that brokenness exists in the world? We see it everywhere: in business, government, education; even in churches, synagogues, and mosques. Brokenness also exists among individuals called to noble conduct: judges, lawmakers, law enforcement officials, medical practitioners, military leaders, religious personages, teachers and more. No level of society or occupation is exempt.” (Father George Morelli)

“We have to be very discerning and insightful, especially about our own brokenness. That is why Christ warns us to take the plank out of own eye before we try to remove the speck of sawdust from someone else’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5). We have to continue to see reality sacramentally and not deceive ourselves regarding our own brokenness, and not see brokenness in general as normal.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)

“The brokenness of our human existence is abolished as we are incorporated into the Church, the Body of Christ, through which we are saved. We are no longer left to live out our lives alone, to suffer and die a meaningless death. Rather, in the Church, our suffering and death become a means to victory, following in the footsteps of Christ, His death on the cross and His resurrection.” (Dr. Paul Meyendorff)

“It’s only through our deep and real continual union with Christ that we have any hope of discernment to not confuse brokenness with normalcy, both within ourselves and others, and then act mercifully and lovingly in to perpetuate healing.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)

“We all are poor in some way or other. The person who thinks money is the measure of success suffers from a kind of poverty of the imagination and intellect as well as of the spirit. Others suffer a kind of poverty of the emotions, unable to intertwine their lives affirmingly with the lives of others. And the Bible tells us we are all poor before God. God offers us all of creation and a relationship with Him and we have only our brokenness to offer back. (Thankfully, that is all that He requires.)” (Daniel Taylor)

“The brokenness of heart is the point of convergence for God and the broken hearted…” (Rev. Eugen J. Pentiuc, Th.D., Ph.D)

“Christ our Lord continues to heal those broken in spirit and restore the Father's love those who are lost….Divine light [Christ] penetrates the depths of our soul to reveal our sins, purge our iniquities, heal our brokenness, illumine our intellect, strengthen our will, and gladden our heart.” (Rev. Thomas Fitzgerald , Rev. Alkiviadis Calivas)

“God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.” (Vance Havner)

“God loves brokenness and its accompanying humility. It draws Him near to us, and us to Him, like a magnet and metal…Brokenness beckons His attention and moves His hand. He becomes actively involved in the lives of the brokenhearted. He comes to bind up their wounds.” (Robin Smith)

“What is brokenness? Where does it come from? Brokenness is the term that describes the fundamental disorder that exists in creation that affects a person's relationships and creative activity. We experience it inwardly in a way that St. Paul described as that pull between right and wrong where we know what is good but choose the opposite.” (Father George Morelli)

“The word “broken” conjures up uniformly negative images: broken bones, broken hearts, broken toys. You don’t want something you value to be broken. Conversely, in God’s dictionary, brokenness is not only good but also essential. He uses only people whose hearts, volition, and pride have been broken.... Those who cast themselves on Jesus, submitting their wills and all that they are to Him, will be broken by Him of arrogance, hard-heartedness, and self-centeredness. It is not a pleasant process but an absolutely necessary one.” (Life Application Study Bible, Luke 20:18)

“The Lord supports all who stumble, and restores all who are broken down.” (Psalms 144:14 (LXX), Psalms 145:14)

“...we cannot get through the periods of brokenness and darkness in our lives without God and hope in Him…A person without God cannot make sense of evil and brokenness in the world.” (Father George Morelli)

“When faced with crushing troubles, we can have faith that God is using our trials for our good and for His glory… When our lives fall apart, we also should turn to God for direction and help” (Life Application Study Bible, 2 Thessalonians 1:4, Life Application Study Bible, Joshua 7:6)

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