Our human flaws, vulnerabilities, and struggles shape us. Our little imperfections tie beautifully into trusting in God to help us in our fight to defeat our enemies, if we connect the two, those cracks -our weaknesses, doubts, and broken pieces can be where faith steps in.
Our imperfections aren’t failures but an opening for divine strength. If you think about 2 Corinthians 12:9 when God tells Paul,
My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
The belief here is that God doesn’t just patch over our flaws but works through them, turning what feels like a liability into a conduit for something greater.
On a human level, our cracks might be where we feel most attacked by our external enemies, like hardship or our inner fears. But by trusting in God we can surrender to Him, handing over those fragile, imperfect parts and believing they won’t become our undoing. It’s like how cracked pottery can still hold water or how in the Japanese art of kintsugi where broken ceramics are mended with gold, making them more beautiful than before.
What if I told you that the brokenness you feel in your life isn’t a sign of weakness, but a sign that God is preparing you for a breakthrough?
Too often, we give up and check out right before things are about to the around because become overwhelmed with trying to keep everything together by ourselves. We were never called to keep it all together. We are called to surrender to God.
I want you tell you to never run away from brokenness but instead follow God because he can shine through brightly all the cracks we have.
I have a nephew who loves playing with Legos. He likes to make things, but he also enjoys breaking them apart to see if he can rebuild them into something new. Sometimes we have to buy more legos so he can make new things.
In comparison, our creator God also enjoys building, creating and making new things. This means He can’t build something that’s already established which means He needs prices to work with.
We may desire to keep it all together, God likes us broken. How many times have you said to yourself “I have got to keep myself together” or told someone to keep it together?” God wants us broken because when we’re in pieces, so He has something to work with.
God doesn’t want us to be self-made. He wants us to be God-made. The Bible tells us we are his workmanship, we are his masterpiece that he is in the process of making. He is building something greater than ourselves. But it’s a process of building, forming, and moving us into what He desires.
2 Corinthians 4:6-7 tells us,
“Seeing it is God who said, light will shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Yeshua the Messiah. But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.”
God will break us to build us – to build us back up, but he also does it to let light shine through.
An egg must be broken for the nutrients to come out. A woman’s water must break for the baby to come out. Darkness has a break for light to shine through.
Breaking is painful, but it’s not always bad. We’ve grown to believe that brokenness must be avoided at all costs not realizing that brokenness is necessary.
We avoid brokenness because we think it makes us weak, but in the upside down Kingdom of God, it is brokenness that makes us better, it makes us stronger, it’s a very mechanism. God uses to allow His strength, His light, and His power to shine through us.
Yes, we can strive, and fake it, and cover it up to keep it all together because we’re afraid that if we are not in control, everything will fall apart, but what we’re really afraid of is that we will fall apart, but that’s the point. That our ways will be disrupted, that our cycles will fracture, and that our hearts will break so that God can do a greater work in us because that’s the only way His glory will shine through the cracks of our mistakes, our missteps, and our weaknesses.
In Genesis 12:4 we see that there was not just a building up, but a tearing down when God created the Earth.
“…And God separated the light from darkness”
In order for light to shine through darkness, it had to break. In order for the light of Christ that is in us to shine through, God sometimes breaks our hearts, but a broken heart doesn’t mean we have to lose heart .
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, stuck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also by manifested in our bodies” -2 Corinthians 4:8-10
Contrary to common belief, brokenness will not destroy you, but trying to keep it all together will. Maybe it’s time to let God have His way. When we cry out and let go of what we try to control, and let the pieces fall where they may, and let God put us back together as He sees fit because His is always faithful to do so much better than we could have ever imagined.
I’ve learned over the years that when it feels like I’m breaking that must be the sign of a breakthrough.
God saved me over 13 years ago. He watched over me and protected me all my life. Even sometimes when I didn’t want to be saved, very sure in some instances where I wanted to die.
I think of it metaphorically through many Bible narratives. God resurrected Jesus so we could be resurrected. The resurrection is the central base of Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20, which is known as “The Gospels.”
Jesus’s tomb is found empty, and this event is celebrated as a triumph over death. You could say that God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, robs the grave of its hold on Jesus, turning it into a place of finality into a symbol of victory.
The grave is meant to claim bodies permanently, is left empty handed.
1 Corinthians 15:55 Paul taunts “Death, where is your sting? Sheol, where is your victory.”
Death is swallowed up in victory. God’s power overrides the natural order, reclaiming life from the clutches of the tomb. The resurrection isn’t theft in a literal sense since God is the creator and holds dominion over life and death. But, metaphorically it’s the divine reversal.
I love Crowders gritty song “Grave Robber.” It’s an upbeat take on the resurrection, that was inspired by the story of Lazarus in John 11-1-44, where Jesus calls Lazarus’s dead Body out of his tomb.
He sings it as a personal anthem, where Jesus as the “grave robber, snatches him from spiritual death, washes him clean, and brings him back to life.
I think sometimes God steals us as the grave robber. He picks us up when we have hit rock bottom. Jesus is the rock and rolls our graves away in a divine rescue to save us from the grave.
Jesus conquers death, not just literally like with Lazarus, but spiritually – pulling people out of sin and despair.
No matter how bleak things get, it’s good to know Jesus can overturn it, because He beat death. He’s got everything else covered.
I would not say I have any favorite emojis. But I use smiles, praying hands, and WoW quite often. And hearts for family members and very close friends that I am grateful for.
“For though we walk in the flesh we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and begin ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled” -2 Corinthians 10:3-6
I have been taking a Bible study at my church, called “Rooted in Christ.” This Bible study opened my eyes to a few strongholds I have in my life. So, in pure fashion I have to share what I learned.
There are four main strongholds we have in our minds:
Fear – The debilitating sense of anxiety that restricts us.
Confusion – That causes double mindedness and restlessness.
Anger – Producing frustration, agitation, and can harm our lives.
Despair – Making us believe that life is not worth living
I think strongholds don’t just affect our minds but our souls as well.
The human body has three parts the spirit, soul, and body (or flesh). Our souls are made up of our minds, will, and our emotions. It’s in the area of the soul that most inner healing is required.
The word “stronghold” is defined in the Greek language as ochuroma which means military fortress. In ancient times it was used to denote a safe place, but also referred to a person attempting to escape reality.
A stronghold in a person’s mind is when a thought which is usually easy to dismiss evolves into a reinforced combination of entangled thoughts that become stuck like a knot that is not easily loosened.
A person with a mental stronghold can find it almost impossible to shake off or dismiss their thinking and it begins to overwhelm their mind to the point they are being controlled by it.
Everything begins to be played out through the lenses of the stronghold. For example, if it is fear then everything is viewed through the prism of fear. Or like mine when is insecurity. My insecurity is persistent and difficult to overcome a pattern of doubt around other people which causes me to believe I am of little worth.
A person that is struggling with a stronghold perceives everything that happens to them through a twisted and knotted thought pattern.
Simply put it’s an imprisonment of thinking. In other words, that we can incarcerate ourselves and we only the key to unlocking the cell door that has imprisoned us.
A stronghold in the mind is a spiritual fortress made up of wrong thoughts and it can be a fortified dwelling place that satan likes to hide and operate. It’s a battlefield of the mind.
The Bible pictures the mind as being held by the enemy which can be a waging war. The Bible says false argument and lofty opinions are counter to God‘s truth. They are areas where we are in bondage that affect our way of thinking in the worst way (2 Corinthians 10:5).
I am sure I got my insecurity strongholds from my childhood. And anything that has longevity developed roots, anything that had roots will become a strongholds. Which means it’s going to require power to demolish it.
But when we are able to remove the stronghold it gives Satan or his minions no place to live.
Strongholds are lies of Satan hiding in human reasoning waiting for us to agree and to approve of them.
I like to discuss what is the focus of people’s purpose in life. Everyone has a purpose and talking about it with others can help us understand what they are.
I was prophesied over many years ago that I was a bridge for people struggling with hardships. I have people come up to me and just unload are their problems on me. So it’s easy for me to share my thoughts of what I’ve been through.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” -Matthew 5:5
Meekness is one of those things you probably skim over when you read the Bible. But if it’s not important why did Jesus make a point to talk about it.
I used to think a bunch of meek people gaining control of the earth kind of sounded like something in a science fiction movie about a bunch of weak people and global domination. A image of smiling push overs.
But, Jesus was the ultimate example of meek in Matthew 11:28, and He’s the exact opposite of a pushover. Moses was also described as meek. In Numbers 12 Moses is leading the nation of Israel and his older siblings who launch a verbal attack against him, regarding his wife, where Moses is a picture of stillness and doesn’t defend himself.
Instead, we see that God defends him mightily. He calls both Aaron and Miriam out and makes them answer for their words. God declares how faithful and above reproach Moses has been and how He was given the privilege of hearing from Him directly. And then Moses sister was struck with leprosy and as sent out of camp for seven days before being healed. He questions why they weren’t afraid to speak out against such a godly man who had done nothing wrong.
Imagine standing nearby and witnessing that. How gut-wrenching would that be for Aaron and Miriam? But still, Moses begs God to heal Miriam.
Moses wasn’t concerned with defending himself let alone launching a counter-attack on his brother or sister. He was slow to anger, leaning into a trust and deference of God. And rather than gloat about the justice that was eventually served, he cried out in the interest of his sister -please heal her.
Meekness means to have a controlled strength that puts everything in the hands of God. It is founded on the trust in God and always denies itself. We can see meekness grow alongside humility and wisdom. Which seeks another person’s interest at the expense of it’s own. And its pure, peaceable, gentle, and open to reason in James 3:13-17.
Meekness should not be confused with cowardliness or weakness. It is not being afraid to stand up to someone, but having the courage to trust God for justice.
We see this again in David’s life before he was made king. Many times he had the strength and power to take the throne from Saul and he would not do so. Many times he quieted his flesh’s whispers that said “Why should you tolerate this? He should pay for this!” and he chose instead to trust the Lord his God with quiet submission (1 Samuel 26:10-11). How opposite is our culture today? We have an entire world that roars against this attitude.
Jesus said, “Meek shall Inherit the earth.” He has a habit of saying things that make me and probably all of us scratch our heads. Is there a sense that the meek have already inherited the earth? The Bible says that all things are ours in Christ, and Paul declared that he has nothing and yet he has everything. If you take swipes at a meek person and they take it in stride, do you have power over them? If they are content and satisfied on this side of eternity in a way they have inherited the earth. This is of course my opinion.
But there are future expectations too. Revelation 21:4 says,
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes…”
There will be purification of souls. Literally, everyone in heaven will live on a new earth and will be meek. To be otherwise would be inconsistent with righteousness.
This leaves us in a position of hope and certainty.
When sowing seeds for God’s kingdom, we have to remember we are the sower, not the guardian over them. Not all seeds will yield fruit, because the harvest depends on the field, not the sower, sowing seeds can be a demanding task, and God’s principles of sowing and reaping are unalterable.
There are a few principles we need to remember when we want to sow seeds.
You are a sower, not a guardian:
We must focus on doing what is right and good, regardless of the immediate outcome or reaction we receive. It is not our job to control the results, but to plant the seeds.
I heard someone talking about how they were planting seeds in someone that they wanted saved. Yet they weren’t expecting where the seed landed and grew. The person’s goal was for a friend to be saved, but her son was instead. They didn’t understand how the seed grew in her son and not who they intended it for. We plant the seed, but God is the guardian -the one who controls the growth of it.
Not all seeds yield fruit:
Not every seed or good deed will bring immediate or visible positive results. Some seeds may fall on barren ground, and that’s okay.
The harvest depends on the field, not the sower:
The receptivity of the field or person or situation you are trying to impact is crucial for the harvest. A seed planted in fertile ground will grow, while a seed planted in barren ground may not.
Sowing seeds is a demanding task:
Doing what is right and good can be challenging and requires time, energy, and resources.
God’s principles of sowing and reaping seeds are unalterable:
The Bible teaches that,
“Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” -Galatians 6:7
This principle applies to both positive and negative actions.
Sow with faith and persistence:
Even when we don’t see immediate results, we should continue to sow good seeds with faith, knowing that God will eventually bring about a harvest.
I have continued to sow seeds, for years and when I least expected it, they grew sprouts and brought people to have faith in Jesus and become saved.
Always sow with generosity:
The Bible encourages us to sow seeds generously, because those who soe sparingly will reap sparingly, and those who sow generously will reap generously (2 Corinthians 9:6).
Don’t get discouraged:
Even if we encounter setbacks or disappointment, we need to remember that God is not mocked, and He will eventually bring about a harvest (Galatians 6:7).
Seek God’s guidance:
We should always pray for wisdom and discernment as we sow seeds, and trust that God will lead us in the right direction.
It’s important to remember Galatians 6:8,
“Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will real destruction, whoever sows to please the ( Holy) Spirit from the Spirur will real eternal life.”
Its important to realize that of we sow seeds for our personal gain nothing good will can from it. We will not receive the goodness of God’s blessings.
From Pity to Praise 