I remember when I was younger I would listen to my older brother Geoff pray. I could hear him as he would pray just over his breath, and he would always finish his prayer with, "thank you for dumping my family."
Night after night, I would listen to him trying to figure out the context, discovering how dumping our family is a good thing. Finally one day, I decided to be brave, and try it out at the end of my prayer and see how things went. My mom was listening, so I figured some feedback might help. So in closing I said, "and God, thanks for dumping my family." My Mom was thrown a bit back, asking why I would say such a strange thing. I told her, "Geoff always says that at the end of his prayer." Without skipping a beat, my brother yelled from across the room, "thank you for what you've done for my family!"
I'm not sure how I got that so mixed up... but hey, it happened.
In the same way, we say things in the church, that are completely mysterious to someone visiting church for the first time, or new to church life. I think worship leaders are the best at this... "Thank you Jesus, we are broken before you, bowing at your feet, extolling You with the highest praise." I think to most of us in the room, we have tuned out such language as church language, but to the new family, that kind of prayer, at best weirds them out, at worst, it scares them a bit.
Changing how our worship leaders pray is a discussion I will avoid here, but I do want to focus in on one saying we hear a lot in the church.
Broken before God.
When you first hear this, it sounds like this painfully uncomfortable and aggressive thing. There may be some who disagree with me, but that's not at all what I picture when I think about being broken before God.
To me, broken before God is the choice to abandon all our normal plans and ideas of how we face difficult moments in life.
Here is what that prayer sounds like for me.
"God, I take all the temporary things I place my trust in, and throw them to the ground, like clay jars full of misplaced hope, I let them fall to the ground, shattering into pieces. Not my plans, not my strength God. Those things are broken, I stand before You trusting You, I am broken and waiting before you God."
Brokenness before God is actually a wonderful relief.
How have you viewed brokenness before God? What other "church phrases" have you come across that you aren't sure about?
Not many have been broken before God even though many claim it. I spent most of my life in church and the people I knew who were truly broken before God don't usually pray out loud, and when they do the words they use are simple and their prayer is for others. The other thing to keep in mind is we are not broken by God. The concept that I don't get, is how people believe they are "dead to this world" but can still make a difference in it.
ReplyDeleteSome great thoughts. It's hard to say what "real brokenness" looks like, but I would say it definitely looks like something significant! I think your point that being broken before God doesn't point to us, but rather it points to God is so good. Humility is what God is drawn to. I especially love your point that we are not "broken by God." That really was the major thought behind why I wrote this. Broken before God is not God breaking us because He's angry. It's us allowing a loving God to take control. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
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