Broken toys

We're all broken people.
We're missing parts that we've lost on the long journey. 
We don't work like we were manufactured to work.


We're all just broken toys. 


With missing parts and dead batteries and melted plastic. 
The wear and tear of everyday life has broken us to the point of being unfixable. 
Our flaws would never pass a safety inspection. They're a choking hazard. 
We belong in the box labeled "yard sale" or "donate".
We deserve to be thrown away. 


Because we broke ourselves. And we broke each other. 
We played recklessly on playgrounds and loved only ourselves. 
We were doomed from the moment we left the factory. 
As soon as the seal on our package was opened for us to be revealed to the real world, we were flawed with scratches and bite marks that super glue can only do so much to fix.  
Our brokenness is past the point of fixable. We will never be the same shiny collector's item that left the warehouse. 
Our flaws have made us worthless. 


But how is that our fault if we were doomed from the start?
We were invented--not by choice. 
We were created against our will to live in this prison where we are damned to be broken. 




But thank God that we have the chance to be set free from our pending doom. 
Thank God we have a healing remedy stronger than any super glue. 
Thank God we have the chance to be remade.
Thank God that our broken parts can be recycled and made into a new creation.
A new creation with the freedom to be made new over and over again, not bound by the filth around, and not destined to be broken forever. 
Thank God we can be rescued from the labeled boxes and garbage cans.
Thank God someone decided we were worth a great price and thank God that price was paid.
Thank God we were purchased for the purpose to be set free. 
Thank God.


We're all broken people.
We're all broken toys.
But thank God we have a healer.
And thank God our God is GREEN. 

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, and the new is here!"

2 Corinthians 5:17

Chemistry, and stuff.

There is a hormone called Oxytocin.
There is also a hormone called Vasopressin. 
These hormones are sometimes referred to as the "love hormone"
They are responsible for emotional bonding. Oxytocin in women, and vasopressin in men. 


We humans bond together. Like atoms. Covalent and ionic bonds, and stuff like that. 




We give our bodies, our hearts, our minds, and our very souls to another person and we never get it all back. 
We're stuck like a bug in fly paper. We become one molecule. Once formed, covalent bonds rarely break. It requires effort. 
So we struggle to break it. But it's not easy. 


Because that bond wasn't meant to be broken. 
It was meant to last a lifetime. We weren't made to break up after we've given someone everything. 
We form the bond with the expectation that it's never going to break. It forms when we open ourselves up enough to let someone in, when we trust them to never hurt us in our vulnerable state. 


So, if or when you break up, a lot of things happen emotionally that we can't understand. 
We watch the carrier of our soul living as a half as we walk around as the thing that once made them whole.  
Everything inside is trying to keep that bond together causing jealousy, bitterness, depression, etc. 
We're trying to be whole again. 
We long to be with those pieces that we gave away. 
It's unnatural and it's not supposed to happen. 


These bonds were meant to have a commitment of a lifetime.
We need to know that the person we've given everything to isn't going to abuse it, leave when they get bored, and isn't going to judge us. But is going to cherish our gift and take care of it. 
We need them to love us as they see the pieces of our insides scattered on the table. 
Through the good, the bad, and the ugly. 
Until death causes them to part. 


But, what do we do?
We can't just close ourselves off and never let anyone in. 
But the more we give ourselves away, the harder it is the next time. The harder it gets to open up and trust again. The harder our hearts become. 


And we don't realize these things until we've gone through it. Until we're living our lives wondering why everything inside of us is telling us to repair the damage instead of letting it be broken.


But God can heal all things. 
And through the ashes He reveals His beauty.
The end justifies the pain.
His hand orchestrates every tiny detail as it catches every tear.
And He knows the end of journey, He sees all the reasons and the outcomes and the lessons. 
He can heal the scars left from the broken bond. 
We just have to let Him. 

The innards of my being.

The innocence of a child.
The wisdom in wrinkles of old age.
The joy in the song of the birds. The sorrow in a voice.
Someone's unspoken pain.
The courage and strength in a victory.
Injustice.
The beauty seeping out of a person's heart.
Mistakes made by loved ones.
The passion in my soul.
When I want to help, but I just can't.
Grace.
My undeserved salvation.
And the adventure of this dynamic life
make me cry.
And I love it.

It's no coincidence.

It's no coincidence that the very love we long, thirst, and search for, the love that can't be found anywhere else, is the very love of God.


It's not by chance that the hole inside each of us can only be filled and satisfied by Jesus.


We were created to need our Creator. 
We were created to have a desire for love. 
God created us that way on purpose.
So that we would search and search and find that He is the love we so desperately desire.
So that we would find Jesus is the puzzle piece that fits perfectly inside each of us. 


We were created empty so that we could have the joy of being filled to the fullest by Him. 


And it's no mystery that we have that emptiness,
we have that need for true love. 
There's no question that everything apart from Christ brings only temporary satisfaction. 


It's no coincidence. 

The Power of Imperfection

I don't know why we feel like we have to be perfect.

We're all aware of just how imperfect we are, so why do we feel like we have to put on that facade and pretend like we're more perfect than everyone else?


Maybe because we think if we act like it enough, we'll become it, or at least believe it ourselves.
Cause no one likes looking in the mirror and seeing all their flaws. It's overwhelming.
And we think it's our responsibility as humans to fix, fix, fix everything we find wrong with us.




As Jefferson Bethke said in Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus,

"If grace is water, then the church should be an ocean
It's not a museum for good people, it's a hospital for the broken.
Which means I don't have to hide my failure, I don't have to hide my sin
Because it doesn't depend on me it depends on him."

Church is not a museum for the healthy, it's a hospital for the sick.

And if we could all just admit to each other that we're sick, how much more could we be healed?

If we could stop nervously glancing around the room during a convicting sermon, hoping that no one can tell what we're thinking, then maybe we could really look inside ourselves and let ourselves be healed. 

Maybe if we could all admit to being sick, our sickness wouldn't be so shameful knowing that countless people have the same disease, and countless people who have overcome it, can help us overcome. 

But, this doesn't only apply to churches. It applies to all humanity in general.

We know all the right words to say. 

We know how to make it look like we're perfect. 

And we do this because everyone else knows how to make it look like they're perfect too.

It's a vicious cycle.

We look around at all the people who supposedly have it together, and think we need to hide the mess inside ourselves. 

We stuff the dirty laundry under our beds without realizing that they're doing the same thing. 

But from where we stand, everyone else's rooms look clean and tidy. 

Everyone else looks healthy because we don't see the viruses attacking them on the inside.  

We all want to be more perfect than everyone else, for no other reason than pride. 

And we succeed at seeming more perfect, so everyone else around us feels like they need to reach the same standard. The standard that doesn't exist. The standard that was oppressed on us to by someone else. And someone else on them. And someone else on them. 

And the vicious cycle continues. 

Genuinity is a lost virtue. 

Transparency.

Honesty.

Our desire to look perfect is only more symptomatic of our imperfection.

And we're all guilty. We're all sick. 

We all put on masks to gain respect, power, praise, etc., all for the sake of pride--built on the foundation of a lie.

But transparency is beautiful.

The ability to be vulnerable is beautiful.

The humility to open ourselves up for criticism, mockery, judgement, or shame, is beautiful.

Because while we open ourselves up to those, we open ourselves up to healing and love also.

And then we give someone else the opportunity to be transparent, knowing that they're not alone. 

This is not a vicious cycle, but a renewing cycle. 

The more we are willing to be open and honest about our imperfections, the more we allow others to be. 

The moment we all decide to stop pretending we're perfect, is the moment we can truly love each other. 

And the cycle of renewal will continue, giving us the power to change the world. 

But it all starts within ourselves. 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
 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.

Mark 2:17
Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Death and Taxes

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." 

-C.S. Lewis

Never has death seemed so real to me.
And still, it doesn't seem that real. 


I think it's so crazy that life can just stop.
Just cease.


Where heart beats, brain waves, and muscle movements once existed, now is a cold and lifeless corpse.


Where there once was a human being with a soul, now is just an uninhabited body.


Our bodies are amazing enough, but add life to them and they're completely incomprehensible. 
God takes our bodies and give them thoughts, and memories, and a spirit, and all these things that science can't explain. 

And we live. We're alive. We spend years and years trapped in this body when all at once 20, 40, 65, 87, 100 years are gone and the life in that body is no more. 


How can it be that a body so full of life, can cease to have life in it at all?


How can it be that a simple heart beat pumping blood to our organs is the determining factor for where our souls are living? 
Where our being, our soul, our self is, is determined by oxygen and brain activity. And heart beats. 


In a moment, every bit of unexplainable life can be gone and all that's left is the body that held it to this earth. 


We are not our bodies, and life is not only what we can see. 
We are the spirit and the soul that inhabits these bodies for the time being.




It's easy to kill a body. All that has to be done is stopping a heart. But can you kill the soul that makes the body alive? Can you diminish from existence the spirit that makes the body a person?


No.


So when all that's left is the body, abandoned and deserted, we can only conclude that the soul goes somewhere. 


And when you know where it's going, death doesn't seem so scary. 

The great compromise

It's funny how willing we are to compromise absolutely everything, for absolutely nothing.

Why?

Maybe it's the thrill.
Maybe it's the chance of it turning out differently than it has every other time.
Maybe we're just stupid.
Maybe we don't care.

Shouldn't we know better than to take a risk knowing the outcome?

Why do we run to edges of cliffs and jump, thinking maybe this time I'll fly?

Why do we walk down paths marked with signs that say danger and dead end?

We foolishly think that we're different. This time is different. We're strong enough, we're smart enough, we're dedicated enough.

But we're not.

We're human.

We're weak and searching for a source of strength.