Blessed are the cracked and broken, for it is we who are filled with God’s grace.
If there is one thing I have learned in my life it’s that everyone is wounded in some way, shape or form. There simply are no people in the world walking around scar-less. In fact, I’ve learned those who project a greater sense of wholeness, or an “I’ve already arrived” mentality, are in fact the ones who are the farthest away from the very wholeness and perfection of which they speak – and unfortunately this seems especially truer among people of faith.
But who wants to be “perfect” anyway? I don’t. As a person of deep faith, someone who loves God deeply, I am reminded by the comforting truth that Jesus did not come for the ‘perfect’ rather he came for the sick, the cracked, the poor and the screwed up.
God loves our cracks and wounds. Our scars are reminders that God has come to us and shown us sacred love and brought us some level of healing.
And the truth of it all is that it is only through the cracks and woundedness of our lives that the profound mystery of God’s love and grace can enter into our hearts and lives bringing tender mercies. In our myth of perfection and achievements, we lose the truth of our brokenness by believing that we are already perfect and whole. In that ‘lie’ we become “sealed shut” and the elements of God’s abundant grace have no opening with which to enter our hearts.
It is a comforting and disturbing truth that grace enters our hearts by way of a wound.
We are a broken and imperfect people. And thanks be to God for that! Yes, Jesus did say, “Be perfect as [God] is perfect.” But the word perfect there does not mean without flaw, error or blemish. In its original meaning, “perfect” means to be “mature, complete, and healthy.” And with this definition in mind, I truly hunger to be ‘perfect’ in God: growing in maturity; complete in God; striving towards wholeness through the Spirit.
So we, who are broken, are called to a God Who enters us through the very brokenness we often run from and deny. It is the lovely mystery of God: that the Holy One enters that which is not so holy. God loves the broken and cracked among us!
And when I speak of the wounded and broken, I am speaking of all of us, but especially those who are wounded and vulnerable on the outside. I have said it before and will say it again; God does indeed have a preferential option for the poor, the broken and the oppressed, not because they are better or more loved, but precisely because they are more vulnerable. Truly, God loves all equally and perfectly. But those that are the most broken, those who cry out in their brokenness, are the ones who are the most open to God’s messy grace.
We who are broken know that we need grace. Those who find themselves to be whole have no need of grace or forgiveness or healing…or even God for that matter.
In truth, without God’s grace and love, I am just an alcoholic hungry for another drink, chasing an illusion. But with the love of the Messiah poured out into my heart and soul, I am whole. And it is this truth – living between the Already and the Not Yet of wholeness – which I must embrace.
So my friends, blessed are the cracked and broken, for it is we who are filled with God’s grace.
soulpatch.net 