it'd be better to be broken

it'd be better to be broken...

just a week ago, my world was falling apart, i had actually bawled on a number of occasions. and so, in walking to class, in falling asleep, in and out of worship sessions, i couldn't cease from crying out. i could identify with the psalmist that my soul clings to the dust, that i'm a vapor at best - i couldn't get away from my sin. and while that probably shouldn't be exactly the way it is, i cried out in desperation and ugliness and need, because it was so clear i couldn't get past the day without Him and that i couldn't do anything good without Him.

i guess the guilt goes away and it's easy to step back into a rut. it's funny that in the moments that we should be the most content, we find ourselves still living as if we were looking for a reason to live. there was a talent show tonight and i began to realize that it's not that anyone in that room was even talented to begin with. nobody in there was talented - we were all just blessed. and we were blessed in that way. just because i was up there doing something wasn't any kind of indication of anything - it wasn't even showing off. it should have simply been natural, because it was blessing.

1 corinthians says that everything we have, we've been given - and just as we entered this world with nothing, we won't be able to take anything with us after death - so then why do we live the way we do, acting as if we somehow earned what we now have? and acting as if the things that we do have, material possessions or talents, are ours to show off and brag about?

i guess that's just a side note. but, truthfully, i guess i'm just bummed that things are great now and i have so much to praise God for, and yet i don't seem to feel Him and so i don't praise Him with the enthusiasm i am compelled to give. i think it would simply be better to be broken, for everything to be in chaos.

i once heard of a group of missionaries who had been imprisoned in Afghanistan or Iraq for a while, with their captors threatening their death. after a while, they were freed and returned back home. some time later, one of the missionaries ran into another of the ones held captive and said, "don't you wish we were still there?"