Tag Archives: hopeless

You’re Broken, Not Defective

You might be broken, but you’re not defective. They’re not the same thing, not at all.

You could think of it like this. You make a clay pot and put it in the kiln. When you take it out, the handle falls off, and the bottom crumbles. That’s defective. It wasn’t made well. It’s junk. You make another clay pot and it turns out beautiful. Then someone drops it on the floor. Now it’s broken. It was made perfectly, but later it got damaged.

That is me, and maybe you, too. Most importantly, it’s Jesus. Brokenness is something he, you, and I all have in common. He was perfect, but he got thrown on the floor and broken. He was abused, taken advantage of, and violated in the worst possible way. (See also
https://freespiritseedcompany.com/2022/01/22/2/)

He was broken — all the way broken — maybe just like you.

Your heavenly Father defines who you are, not your brokenness.

He was forsaken by his friends, beaten repeatedly, tortured.

But that is very different from being defective.

Your heavenly Father defines who you are, not your brokenness. Not other people. And not even you. He made you wonderful, the Bible says (Psalm 139:14). He is The Highest Artisan, and he personally handcrafted you, right there in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13).

Maybe someone lied and said you’re a mistake, an accident, should never have been born. I’m gonna be honest and say your Creator drew the detailed blueprints for you way before you were ever conceived. Before time began, to tell the truth. So no, you’re no accident. You have purpose. You should ask him to reveal that to you. It might be as simple as, “He put me here to praise him.”

A defective pot is worthless and useless. But a handsome, beautiful pot that has been shattered only needs to be put back together. He can do that with you, just like happened with Jesus. It’s his specialty.

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.” ‭‭Joel‬ ‭2‬:‭25‬ ‭ESV‬‬

That is an agricultural image. Picture endless miles of crops. Millions of insects descend on it, devour, and leave it in shreds. Maybe that is like many of the years in your life. It is mine. Somehow, he is slowly restoring to me ‘the years the locust has eaten,’ piece by piece. He’s putting my broken pieces back in place. It’s mysterious, but he can repay to you everything you lost, as he promised. Just keep following him, and don’t give up.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭17‬ ‭ESV‬‬
If he can make us from the dust, can’t he remake us, too?

“But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭64‬:‭8‬ ‭ESV‬‬

It’s Ok If You’re Afraid

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32

Somebody is afraid. Maybe with good reason. God is not angry at you for feeling scared. Are you going to bring it to him? Or carry it yourself. He is not mad, but just understand you don’t have to be afraid.

Isn’t that what Psalm 23 is about? “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” That means you’re surrounded by evil. It’s dark, shadowy. The normal response is to fear. Father says you can be inside the evil and not fear it because He is with you in it.

More Important than Loving God?

First off, you probably already know how Jesus summarized the most important commands for humans. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:37-40

So love God and love each other. What could possibly be more fundamental? Maybe: whatever empowers and motivates us to obey those commands. That, I think, is God’s love toward us.

“We love because he first loved us.”
1 John 4:19

You can be nice to anyone out of sheer will power, at least for a few minutes. But that is not why we treat our good friends well. We’re kind to our closest friends because it just flows out of us naturally. We don’t have to ‘try.’ In fact, we may even be nicer to other people when we’re around that friend because that’s just the effect they have on us.

Similarly, the more time you spend meditating or thinking about the love of God for you personally, the more you will find love spontaneously coming out of you toward God and others. Knowing he loves us makes love flow out of us naturally.

The only thing more important than receiving God’s love for us is Who He Is in himself. He, of course, is Love. “God is love,” I John 4:8.

This is good news for those of us who feel undeserving, because it recalibrates everything. Do you see it? Where is the focus when we think, “How could God love me? I don’t deserve it. I’ve done all these bad things?” Yeah, that’s what we say we are looking at ourselves. Which is why this verse is so great. When we look away from self to Father, we go, “Oh, now I get it. He doesn’t love me because of me. He loves me because of him.” Like when people say, “Well, that’s just the way I am.” And God is saying, “I am loving because that’s just the way I am.”

The very most important thing is Who God Is.

So, the more time and effort we invest into finding out what his personality is like, what makes him tick, the better we’ll understand why he has so much affection for us.

And the more we realize how deeply we are loved, the more it naturally transforms us into loving people. It takes less and less effort (although it still takes effort) and becomes more second nature. And that makes it a zillion times easier to love God and others.

The Hymn about Ink

Could we with ink the ocean fill

You go to the beach. Instead of water washing up on the sand, it’s black ink. Ships sail past in the distance, on top of it.

And were the skies of parchment made

You go outside in the morning to sip your coffee. There are no clouds, no sky blue, no orange sun. It’s a giant piece of paper so big it takes jets several minutes to fly across it, from the horizon on one side, all the way to the top of the sky, and all the way down the other horizon.

Were every stalk on earth a quill

Every single blade of grass in your yard (have you ever counted how many are in one square foot?), every stalk of corn in Kansas, every tree trunk in any forest — all of them are quills people write with.

And every man a scribe by trade

All 7.6 billion of us writing furiously, nonstop. Picture everyone in a packed soccer stadium with a pen and a bunch of paper all writing simultaneously.

To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry

Nor could the scroll contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky.

“The Love of God”

by Frederick M. Lehman

Pretty Sure It’s Another Miracle

One of our children has had significant struggles with anxiety the past three years. It started with an illness, and has flared up in many different ways. They are under the care of a brilliant psychiatrist who has prescribed various meds, which have certainly helped.

After a recent unpleasant experience at the dentist, they’ve had panic attacks far worse than any before. They occur around bedtime and keep them (and their mama) up for an extra hour or two. Hyperventilating. Freaking out at trivial things. They have bad dreams about the dentist. If you have anxiety or are close to someone who does, you probably know we could go on recounting the stories for a very, very long time.

Then a couple nights ago, it lifted.

The panic attacks are basically gone, like they evaporated. This child usually meets me at the door happy now, instead of with the latest crisis.

Jealousy is being replaced with, “I’m so happy for them!”

This person has not enjoyed running around outside for several years. Now they ask if we can go for a walk as a family and they enjoy frisbee with their sibs.

And they are finally able to cry. Always they held the tears in, trying to be strong. Last night, for the first time, they cried when their sister was sad about our guinea pigs that died a couple years back.

That’s all brand new.

The Spirit about them is light whereas it used to be weighed down a lot, and they recognize this, too.

Two weeks ago they were terribly concerned about body image, afraid they would never get married and therefore never have children. Today they accept their body the way it is, and feel “content” with it.

We did not pray any specific prayers that night. They just woke up different.

Was this a real miracle? Sometimes people just change, you know. They’re tired of the hum drum and decide to step out in a new direction. People also morph into something beautiful when a kind word strikes home in just the right way. In other instances, an experience permanently changes our perspective. But I can’t find any of these in this story. I interviewed them, looking for such events.

Addendum: It’s been about a month now. We are still having some anxiety issues when life isn’t going like we want. But overall the panic attacks are resolved.

They don’t always meet me happy at the door, but it’s still noticeably different.

They still enjoy being outside and asked to ride their bike today.

They still cry, which again was totally new.

The body image thing went away and never came back.

Pretty sure it was a plain old miracle.

Regarding Your Bad News

Both enemies and successes rise and fall. Underneath all our experiences though, there is bedrock. There are unshakable promises.

“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel SHALL stand, and I WILL accomplish ALL my purpose,”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭46:9b-10‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Father will accomplish everything he purposes. His counsel will stand, period.

If you feel fearful about the future, me, too. I struggle with it every single day. Often it’s on my mind when I wake up before I’m even out of bed, frequently during the day, and when I lie down. Covid. Civil unrest, nationally and worldwide, politics, etc.


My stomach stays in knots. I get withdrawn and irritable when I’m afraid, which is a lot.
Sing-songy Sunday School verses and cartoon Bible stories profit me nothing when I am afraid like this.


“Everything that could be shaken was shaken, And all that remains is all I ever really had,” articulated Rich Mullins.


When I look around me, everything is shakable. My health, my family, my freedom, all of it.


Sometimes the world looks hopeless, which is a ghastly word if you think about what it really means.

The Sovereignty of God is my only Rock, the only fixed point in the swirling tempest. He has not made the suffering around me go away, but he is my anchor in the middle of it.


I have hope because *he* holds onto *me.* If you can get what I’m saying, God doesn’t help those who help themselves. He helps those who can’t. He helps me when my strength is zero. I am not a strong, rugged individual, an army of one. I am helpless.


‘For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” ‘Isaiah 41:13

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. John 10:28


Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10