EL’s Dribble

I think I’m relearning the breaking process again. I wish it didn’t cycle back so quickly. And yet I know… I know it’s God’s way of pruning those he loves. No father withholds discipline from the son that he loves.

As a man, pride and fear still course through my veins. There’s some enormous thing in me that still wants to conquer the world and have everyone shower their praises over me. Delight in my brilliance. Rejoice in the gift that is me. And the moment that I find the coat of grandeur fitting so well, it gets ripped off and I find that I’m not wearing much underneath.

Nothing necessarily terrible has happened. But I just feel like I’ve been running head-first into the wall of failure and impotence over and over again. Feeling like a failure and feeling powerless – those are the worst feelings. But it’s said that there’s good brokenness and bad brokenness. Good brokenness is when the element that needs to be broken gets replaced with something life giving. Bad brokenness happens when the element gets broken but is never replaced. It just becomes the wound that we carry and thrust on others through life. We never grow from it, never gets replaced, we continue dying the slow death, never rediscover fresh and new life from the brokenness.

When Jesus says that dying comes before life. I think I’m rediscovering that truth once again. Those parts of me, the pride, the fear, the dreams of my own immortality… must die. And die completely. When he says apart from me you can do nothing, I always want to bend the rule. How about a little something? How about being able to do a little… and then take it to the corner of my house, crouch down and revel in my false brilliance. But no… he says nothing. Apart from Him, I can do nothing. And the nothing is what I’m finding all the more apparent.

Thanks? OK… thanks.

I’ve been prodded by my wife to write down some of my thoughts and experiences these past few years… especially with leading a church and doing things I have not the faintest idea of how to do. Thanks for sacrificing a few of your precious moments to read and interact. See you next time.