To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
For the longest time I often wondered what the point of God showing me my own personal brokenness. I knew I was broken and I didn’t know why God had to show me this over and over again. I was trying to get past my brokenness…you know, move on from it. I didn’t want to stay in my brokenness, I was always searching out victory! Why victory? SO that I could one day say that I’ve overcome my brokenness…
Often God breaks us for many reasons, but lately I have come to the realization that our brokenness is there to accomplish one thing, to break our pride. Pride runs deep within our souls, and it takes a lot to break us from it’s grip on our soul.
When our brokenness is revealed to us we go to God and ask Him to remove these things from us. “God make me more patient with my kids.” “God take this anger away from me.” “God take this desire away from me…”
But everyday we are reminded of the things that makes us weak. Through this our pride is broken and we are taken to a place of humility. To often we get caught up in what, or who, we should be and we work to portray that to the world. We put on our masks so that people see what we want them to see, and when our true self comes out we feel shame because we feel feel as if these weaknesses make us unworthy to be HIS. We fear our weaknesses will put people off, scare them away, or they won’t love us anymore.
Through our pride we feel the weight of the world on our shoulders and think that the WE are the only ones that can lead those around us to find Jesus. We hide our feelings, body, guilt, anger, and shame in hopes that some how we can prove ourselves holy to the world.
But you see only when our pride is broken are we truly made holy. When we embrace the truth about our self, including all the shameful brokenness, that is when we finally learn to accept God’s infinite grace which is what makes us Holy in His eyes.
It’s difficult to see that humility is truly the key to Holiness. When we admit our weaknesses and accept them, that is when God, the Holy Spirit, is given the opportunity to work in us. The Holy Spirit can’t thrive in a temple that is filled with pride. Humility is where the Holy Spirit begins to produce fruit in your life.
Humility is knowing you need God’s help. When we are constantly trying to “fix it” our self then we are embracing pride.
If you were stuck in a hole 6 feet deep with no rope, no way to get out, and there was a person standing at the top of the hole with a rope and a harness, would you ask that person for help? What if that person sent down the harness to you without you even asking, would you grab hold of it or would you try and climb out of the hole yourself?
We are all in a hole, and Jesus is the one with the rope. If we can’t admit our sin and brokenness, and if we can’t stop trying to fix our brokenness, we will never be able to truly experience life the way God intended.
It’s not our sin that is keeping us from having a relationship with God, it’s our pride…When we let go of our pride and open our eyes and heart to how truly broken we are, we are then forced to turn to God every single day. Our reliance on Him comes when we stop relying on our self….
Prayer:
Dear God, forgive me for being so prideful. Pride is truly a struggle for me, and I’m grateful that you had made this revelation to me. Thank you for breaking me so that I can truly experience YOU. I pray for your grace and mercy on my everyday because Lord I need it. I need You. Only in YOU can I find the strength I need to get through every single day. Only in YOU do I find the answers that I need. Lord help me to stay focused on YOU. I pray this in Jesus’ name. – Amen
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