The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit.  God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.  Psalm 51:17 HCSB

Is your heart and/or your spirit broken?  Well, this can be a good thing.  You see most of us have to come to this place in order to be useful to God.  We have to be humbled to please Him.  We can’t please God with a haughty spirit filled with pride.  We know by reading scripture like Proverbs 16:18 God hates pride.

I lead a pretty sheltered existence when I lived at home with my parents.  They protected me as best they could from the dangers of the world.  An example of this is the fact that we had horses the whole time I lived with my parents and I had a couple even after that and I have never been thrown from a horse.  The reason for this is my Dad never allowed me to ride a horse that he didn’t completely trust as being gentle and well broken.  He either rode the horse himself or watched someone ride it before I was allowed to get on it.

Now the term “break” when used with horses basically means that you work with that horse until you can trust it to behave in a gentle manner.  Horses are generally high spirited and their spirit has to be somewhat broken in order to make them gentle. This is generally done by easing into a relationship with the horse and getting the horse to trust you.  Once you build this relationship you attempt to ride the horse.  The horse may be resistant to this and you may be thrown off a few times.   Of course, I’ve seen some rodeo guys just jump on the horse and attempt to ride it, but they kind of like the thrill of being thrown. Now some horses are broken fairly easily.  They seem to be born with a gentle spirit.  Some are never very well broken and can never really be trusted.  Sound familiar?

Life sometimes make us into people that are high spirited.  The heartache that we experience as we go through life sometimes makes us bitter and prideful feeling like we have to look out for number one.  It sometimes makes us feel as though we are all alone and if we don’t take care of ourselves, no one will.  Can you imagine how that must make God feel?  I mean there He is with open arms, wanting to wrap you in those arms and you feel as though there is no one around that can help.

I know this feeling because I have been there.  I have been through times in my life when I just felt that I had to protect me.  I had to do what I wanted when I wanted because no one else was looking out for me.  I felt that I had to make my own happiness and joy. Now let me say this,  during those times I did not feel God near.  The reason that  I did not feel God near was because I had wandered away from Him.  I had put distance between us by leading a sinful life.  I had been going to church, but not really involved in church.  I hadn’t really invested much time and thought into church, I was just doing my obligatory hour every couple weeks.  When I really began to get involved in church and draw closer to God, my sin became a serious problem in my life.  I had no peace.  I had no joy.  I had to fix this.  I cried out to God to help me fix it and he did.  He broke my spirit.  He took away the sin that I thought I just could not live without.  He provided what I needed financially and spiritually to get my life back on track.  He just had to break me down first.  I just wouldn’t give up on the idea of doing it my way.  He had to break my spirit for me to see that His way was so much better.

Once I humbled myself and committed my life to Christ, I realized that my way could never be better than His way.  I am happy to say that I am completely broken.  I have humbled myself before Christ.  I could never have survived the last few years, had I not done that.

Today, my friend, if you are feeling broken that’s okay.  That’s really where God needs you to be.  Just turn to Him and allow him to fix you.  Humble yourself before Him and admit that you have gone about it all wrong and now you want to do it the right way.  He will help you do that.  Spend time with Him through Bible reading and prayer.

Sometimes a broken heart is just a good start.  God can use that and work with that to make you the Christian that you need to be.  God can heal that broken heart and bring you peace and joy.  So turn to God, humble yourself before Him, trust Him completely to make you into what He needs you to be. You will be so glad you did!

Have a great day!