Brokenness defined is a fracture or disorder, it means to be forcibly separated into two or more pieces. In the natural meaning it is harsh, and doesn’t seem to be something we want to happen in our life. In the spirit though, the definition of brokenness is much different. Some might call it surrender, or even consecration. Brokenness will produce surrender or consecration to the Lord, if the person will allow it to.
Brokenness, if allowed, sets the stage for transformation. The Spirit of God will use your brokenness as entry into our lives to begin the healing process. Unfortunately, too many of us don’t allow this process to occur. We run the wrong direction toward other avenues to numb the pain, either by drugs, alcohol, food, people, work, etc. When we do this we actually start producing more brokenness and pain in our lives, instead of the freedom that God is trying to produce in us through this brokenness.
In John 12:24 we learn that a kernel of wheat will die unless it falls to the ground or is planted in the soil. But it is not the shell around the seed that causes life, but what is in the shell. The seed inside must be exposed, and even Jesus said that this process of death must occur for the seed to begin the true growth process that produces a new harvest.
Is this a difficult process for the seed and shell? Of course it is, but when that seed goes through the broken period, and allows the process that the brokenness is causing, the seed becomes what it was really suppose to be from the start, and it goes on to produces a huge harvest.
Another example of brokenness and renewal is the caterpillar; it crawls in the dirt and on the ground where it is abused and mistreated. It’s limited and it is not functioning in the capacity it was intended to be from the foundation of the world. So what does it do? It looks up! The caterpillar knows that there is something more than dirt and despair, so it starts climbing up the tree and then finds its place on higher ground.
The caterpillar begins to die and to break, believing that something has to be better than dirt. After the brokenness and transformation period, he breaks forth and becomes what he was truly made to be. A butterfly that is free to go where the wind takes him.
Brokenness before God will bring the wings you need to fly where the Lord wants to take you. Don’t be afraid of the pain, embrace it and let the Spirit of God do His work in you. He didn’t bring the storm, but He will use it to make you better and transform you into the person He created you to be from the very beginning.
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For more than twelve years, Teresa Kemp has been involved in prison and jail ministry. Teresa uses her personal trials to help others who have shared life experiences understand the hope that she found to live a meaningful, purposeful life in Jesus Christ. She is a dedicated ambassador in sharing the message of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Teresa is an ordained minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ through Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has a degree in psychology from Florida Southern College and is the president and founder of Breaking Chains International, Inc., (BCI) a ministry dedicated to helping the lost through the gospel and reaching out to the hopeless, prisoners, orphans, and widows.