Choosing Un-Brokenness

Choosing Un-Brokenness.  (third in a series, following “Has you ever been Broken?”)

In vulnerability and truth, it seems like the breaking down of my home was a long time in coming, but summer has been especially broken - just no better way to put it.  But yet I sincerely believe God is in the business of healing and restoration.  And the beauty of each sunrise is that it brings the possibilities of grace for the new day . . . how to square such beliefs with reality.

Jesus taught his disciples and friends to shake the dust from their feet¹, and keep moving forward.  After all, yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.² But the broken must make a conscious choice to move toward a place of healing.  Though Jesus taught that ‘in the world, we would have trouble,’ in the same breath, he said, ‘but take heart!  I have overcome the world.^’3    Therefore, followers of Jesus Christ must choose not to remain broken; indeed, Christ-followers are called to be overcomers.  But hear me well,

>choosing not to remain broken,

  >choosing life,

    >choosing healing,

      >choosing to put off bitterness,

>choosing joy,

          >choosing our attitude,

            >choosing forgiveness,

             >choosing contentment,

               >choosing our thoughts,

                 >choosing to look forward and not back,

                    >choosing love . . .

                        is up to each of us, alone.

                            No one can do it for us.

I am endeavoring to make such choices. ‘Join me?

“How?” you ask.  It starts with the sunrise, (that is, each new day), and a desire to think God’s thoughts after him.  It starts with a desire to choose good thinking and consciously make right decisions to honor God all throughout the day.  And chances for success are substantially increased when I outfit myself with the right elements. 

Going back to the image of my nineteen-year-old Dylan, (reference “Trusting God from your Broken place” - http://pastorwoman.com/ReadArchive.aspx?id=1425). . . as he gets ready to go and fight, taking a look at his equipment is beneficial for us.  The first item he puts on is his boxing wrap.  Because his hands are critical in Muay Thai and boxing, he carefully wraps his hands with long cotton bands before he puts on his gloves.  After all, if the bones in his hands get broken, he is finished.  Other equipment follows.

If Dylan’s wraps are foundational for any offensive or defensive move, so too is good thinking for healthful living.  Similarly, you and I must know what equips us to ‘fight the good fight.’⁴ First and foremost, it is our thoughts that set our minds in one direction or another—toward mental, emotional and spiritual wholeness, or something less. In personally desiring to choose un-brokenness this summer, I have spent many, many hours in the past weeks and months listening to biblical teaching and uplifting, worship-filled music, and reading to increase my biblical knowledge.⁵  (Do I have something against that which is secular?  Of course not, but I am careful; since I am trying to heal, I am making the effort to consume that which not only feeds my mind and heart, but also encourages my faith.)

All of the right choices I indicated earlier—choosing joy and contentment, while putting off bitterness, etc. -- all find a basis in Scripture.  Stay tuned—more to come on that.  In the mean time, I am a big proponent of awaking with expectation that each day is new, and filled with reasons to look forward, reasons to let go of that which binds and causes us to think small thoughts. 

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day

who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it…

This new day is too dear,

with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”⁶

This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.⁷  Amen.