LIVING WITH BROKENNESS AND DYSFUNCTIONALITY

I like to boast in my weaknesses, faults, and failures, not simply because it is required but also because it is the truth (2 Cor. 12:7-10; Phil. 3:7-9). I had been entirely broken and dysfunctional. For decades, I had been imprisoned by a mental bondage that had exceeded any form of physical pain. I felt so bad about myself, so inferior, so inadequate, and so damaged that I felt so uncomfortable in the presence of others and couldn’t wait to escape. Sometimes, these feelings were so intense, I couldn’t even talk.

However, over time, my Savior set me free, as He had promised (John 8:31-32). Therefore, He gets all the credit. It has become my joy to give Him all the recognition and thanks. Why? Because He deserves it!

King David also understood this. Upon bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, he danced before the Lord “with all his might” (2 Sam. 6:14). David even shed his kingly garments and danced like a common man. However, his wife, Michal, the daughter of King Saul, despised him when she saw this. However, David answered her:

·       “It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD—and I will celebrate before the LORD. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken [with contempt], by them I shall be held in honor.” (2 Samuel 6:21-22; ESV)

Not everyone will understand the surpassing value and beauty of humility and self-abasement before our Savior. However, those who know Him will get it, those who are aware that they are nothing without Him. They understand that they have nothing to boast about apart from their Lord:

·       But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. (Philippians 3:7-9)

This is what I want to model before the world – that Christ is my hope and my righteousness. In fact, so that I do not forget this all-important lesson, my Savior has left me with enough selfish internal “rubbish” to remind me that it is all about Him.