Day 5 – Lord, Break Me
One key quality I look for in selecting leaders is a broken spirit or a spirit of humility.
Is this person’s life marked by a sense of humility or pride? How have they handled difficult times, difficult people, difficult situations, difficult decisions?
When I meet this person, do I see Christ in that person, Christ living his life through this person?
Some Christian leaders are full of themselves instead of full of God. Yet the Lord Jesus cannot fully live through us until our proud self is broken.
David acknowledged before God: “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).
You cannot grow up unless you walk down the path of brokenness. Whatever your level of spiritual maturity, you will always have areas of your life God needs to work on.
Perhaps it is a striving for perfection, an inclination toward despair, an anxious heart, or a stubborn insensitivity. Whatever it may be, new Christlike ways cannot replace the old until you let God smash the former patterns to bits.
But don’t pray “Lord, break me” unless you’re ready for a radical transformation through the work of the cross, by dying to self, by not being afraid of suffering. It’s a path all Christians must follow, but some are not ready for it.
Like clay in the potter’s hand, the Lord desires to break us, melt us, shape us, mold us.
God said through the prophet Jeremiah, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does? Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand” (Jeremiah 18:6).
Today we use the short slogan “no guts, no glory” or “no pain, no gain”.
William Penn (1644-1718), the English Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania, originally and thoughtfully expressed it this way: “No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.”
It seems Penn understood the prayer “Lord, break me.”
Prayer: “Lord, bend that proud and stiff necked I. Help me to bow the head and die. Beholding him on Calvary, who bowed his head for me.”
~ Pastor Dave
