There is a difference between woundedness and brokeness.

Matt Heard:
There’s a difference between woundedness and brokenness, so let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life. We’re here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Matt Heard is a speaker, teacher, writer, pastor, coach, and the founder and principal of a ministry called Thrive. And he’s been teaching us all this week.

Matt Heard:
Thank you Matthew. Greetings to all of you in the middle of the week, you Key Lifers. What we’re doing this week is talking about learning to dance with broken bones. We all have broken bones experiences that we bring upon ourselves or that have happened as a result of being in a fallen world or that a sin of others has done. That’s the reality, but we have a choice in the midst of that, and that choice is whether we’re going to dance with those broken bones or not. Paul writes about this a little bit in iI Corinthians chapter 4: verse 7, he says.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. We’re hard pressed on every side, but not crushed.

Now, hear that.

We’re hard pressed, but we’re not crushed. We’re perplexed, but we’re not in despair. We’re persecuted, but we’re not abandoned. We’re struck down, but we’re not destroyed. As we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life, the Zoe of Jesus, the life of God that’s exhibited in Christ that he brings to us by his Spirit may also be revealed in our journeys, in our body. For we who are alive are always been given over to death for Jesus’ sake so that his life may be also revealed in our mortal body. So, then death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

So, he says.

We’re hard pressed, but not crushed. We’re perplexed, but not in despair. We’re persecuted, but not abandoned. We’re struck down, but not destroyed.

I wish in the Greek it said this, it doesn’t, but it could. We have broken bones, but we still dance with them. That’s what he’s saying. If you’ve been with us this week, you know that I have on the desk in front of me here in the studio, a little bowl that I broke with a hammer, a little pottery dish, but right next to it, I’ve got what an artist friend did, it’s a Kintsugi dish. It’s patterned after the ancient art of Kintsugi. It’s not the actual Kintsugi art that you find in Japan. Although I do have one of those at home, it’s just pretty expensive to travel around with. But Kintsugi is the art of gold and repair, that’s what that word means in Japanese. It’s where Kintsugi master takes that broken piece of pottery and repairs it with a lacquer, a glue that’s laced with gold. And as a result of what the Kintsugi master does that bowl that has been broken and has now been restored is more beautiful and more valuable than it was before. And it’s our response that’s key to whether or not we’ll be repaired. A lot of us who approach the gospel is just a two chapter scenario. We talked about in the beginning of the week that it’s just the fall and then redemption. It is that, but it’s more, it’s creation. What God made in the first place, has been broken and Christ came to redeem, but he also came to restore, to make us new creation. So, what I want to do is give you an equation to have in your mind, and it’s a plus equals type of equation. Here’s the first equation, broken experience plus resistant posture equals woundedness that chokes life. So, we all have broken experiences, if I combine that with a resistant posture, it’s going to result in a woundedness and that woundedness has consequences. It chokes out the Zoe life of the gospel for me to experience. All right, so here’s another equation. Broken experience. Remember we all have them, but instead of being met with a resistant posture, I meet that broken experience with a broken, pliable posture. And that leads to what I’m going to refer to as brokenness that leads to life. Now, I think there’s a difference between being broken and this posture of brokenness. We’re all broken. But this Kintsugi dish that I’m looking at, it’s broken, but it’s been repaired. So, the beauty is in its brokenness because that brokenness has been harnessed. These pieces that lie over to the right, it’s a broken dish and there’s not a brokenness, there’s not a submissiveness, there’s no artistry that’s going on in that. So, the broken experiences we can’t prevent, we can’t avoid as much as we try. So, we have a choice. Do I escape or do I engage? Remember, we talked about that pasture theology, those broken experiences are gateways to the next pasture, the greener grass, the maturity. And a lot of times we want to leave the stagnation of where we are and grow more in our intimacy with God, in our experience of the gospel. But the gates that get us to those new arenas, I mean, the Scriptures over and over, James 1, that we looked at. We need refining, those gates are broken experiences. And so, the mistakes that I can make that we looked at, I can choose to medicate instead of pursuing maturity. I can choose to opt for the illusion, that I’m exempt or the world’s not fallen over reality. I can opt for the mistake of saying, okay, I’m going to take the path of just being wounded instead of being refined and restored. That’s the result of trying to escape that broken experience. How about engaging with it, what will that look like? Engagement, bottom line, is submission. This clay pot, that passage that Paul writes in II Corinthians, he says, we’re all, we’re treasures of clay. We’re fragile. We get broken. But engagement is where I submit. Engagement really is submission. It’s submission into a number of things. And whatever broken experience that you’ve got going on right now, be it an illness, or a besetting sin, or a betrayal, a relational thing, a financial thing, a vocational thing, whatever it is, I’d like you to I’m going to stare at it. Could this be a gate? If instead of just trying to escape it, we engage with it. And I want to make something real clear here. It’s not that we don’t go, we don’t pursue those broken experiences. There’s enough that comes to us.

Today will bring enough trouble of it’s own.

We don’t have to seek it out. Otherwise we become this weird, masochistic, where we’re just kind of saying, Hey, the more miserable I am, the more spiritual I am. And that’s not the gospel. But when the broken experiences do come, I’m given the opportunity if I choose to engage, to submit. Let me give you three areas about God to submit to. One is his love in the midst of that broken experience. If I’m going to move from woundedness to a beautiful brokenness, I just need to submit to his love in the midst of that. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever cried alone? Now, you macho types, have you ever pretended to cry alone? The answer to either of those questions is no. We’ve never cried alone. Psalm 56:8 says.

You’ve kept count of my tossings; you’ve put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?

That word bottle could be wineskins as well. I mean, where God collects my tears and puts them in a wineskin and he’s going to redeem those tears. He loves us in the midst of it. Ironically and tragically, when we need his love more than at any other time, we often resist his love more than at any other time. We opt for the misery of that broken experience. We opt for feeling abandoned instead of realizing in the midst of the fall. Remember, don’t live in the realm of illusion. We’re in a fallen world, so let’s let him love us in the midst of that, but not just letting them love us. As Steve often says, you know, it’s hard to hug a stiff kid, becoming soft in his presence and saying, I’ve got my questions about why you allowed this to happen. Yes. But I also know I’m not exempt and that you love me in the midst of this. But the second thing I want to submit to about his character is his authority. As our friend Pat Morley says.

There’s a God we want and a God we need, and they’re not the same. And often the God we want is a God that won’t let us go through any difficulty, but that’s not reality. The God we need is the one who can teach us and refine us.

Zechariah chapter 13

“I will bring them into the fire, and I will refine them like silver, and test them like gold. And they will call on my name, and I’ll answer them. And I’ll say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.'”

It’s why Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the amazing Russian thinker and writer, he said.

Bless you, prison, for having been in my life.

The authority that God used to shape him. And it’s not just submitting to God’s love and his authority, but to the opportunity of this moment. You know, the Chinese symbol for crisis, it’s a pictograph and there are two symbols that go together. There’s danger on one side and opportunity on the other. And what’s being communicated is there’s opportunity in the midst of danger. There’s opportunity in the midst of crisis. When I experience this difficulty, there’s an opportunity for me to grow. An opportunity for me to, as you know, Habakkuk says.

That though the fig tree doesn’t bud, and there are no grapes on the vines.

He says.

I’ll still rejoice. And he’ll make my feet like the feet of a deer. The sovereign Lord will enable me to go on the heights.

And as Ray Vander Laan loves to say, I remember journeying with him in Israel long ago, he says.

Too often we pray for a smooth path instead of praying for feet to deal with the difficult path.

So, give me feet for the path instead of a path that will suit my comfort oriented feet. And it would be a great thing to say, Father, I want to engage and let you refine me. Let me, this experience, lead me into a deeper experience of your grace and your love. And I hope you thrive today.

Matthew Porter:
That was Matt Heard. And we are in the midst of an amazing series called Dancing with Broken Bones. Today, we explored the difference between woundedness versus brokenness. Powerful stuff and guess what? We still have one more day with Matt. Of course that would be tomorrow. Hope you will join us then. Well, if you’re a regular listener to Key Life, then you’ve probably heard Matt before. He’s thoughtful, he’s very well read and tall. He’s so very tall. So, you may be interested in reading some articles Matt has written on our website. If you want to do that, then just go to keylife.org then on the left hand menu, click authors, and then scroll down until you find Matt’s name. And as you’re there, you’ll also see info and articles from all our Key Life contributors. It’s an easy way to deep dive into the content that ministers to you the most. And great news, all of our website content is still free thanks to the generous support of listeners just like you. If you’d like to donate, call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. If you’d like to send a donation by mail, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses or e-mail [email protected] you can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. And of course, now you can give safely and securely simply by texting Key Life to 28950 and then following the instructions. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And as always, we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.