Broken On Purpose
In Psalm 142, King David sat in a cave—afraid, overwhelmed, and seemingly alone. He lifted his voice to the Lord: With my voice I cry out to the LORD; with my voice I plead for mercy to the LORD. I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him (1-2). David was spiritually, mentally, and emotionally broken.
Charles Spurgeon once said of this Psalm, “Is it not a curious thing that whenever God means to make a man great, He always breaks him in pieces?” Spurgeon’s question is hauntingly insightful. So often, greatness in God’s kingdom comes only after we’re broken by the Lord.
We all have days when we find ourselves in the cave—buried in worry, weighed down by sin. Yet we’re often too proud, too unaware, or too stubborn to admit that our hearts and minds are fractured beyond our ability to repair. We sit in the mess instead of surrendering to our only hope of restoration: Jesus Christ.
We’ve been there—broken, ashamed, and unwilling to admit how deep the cracks run. It’s easy for us to know the Gospel intellectually, but so much harder to apply it practically. If we’re not careful, the cave becomes a place of self-pity, where we fixate on the shattered pieces of our lives rather than on what God is shaping through them.
But the Lord is patient. He is gracious. We no longer need to hold it all together with some sort of self-centered super glue. Our prayers and the desires of our hearts must change. No longer, “Why me, Lord?” but instead, “Lord, break me to pieces—if that’s what it takes for us to be made whole in You.”
Spiritual growth often comes through brokenness. Instead of resisting it, perhaps, as crazy as it sounds, we should welcome it. Not because the pain is good, but because Christ meets us in it with His transforming grace. And it’s in those very moments—when we are weak, dependent, and surrendered—that we grow more into His likeness.
The apostle Paul knew this firsthand. When pleading for relief from his own affliction, he discovered that weakness was not a disqualifier—but the very place where God’s strength is most clearly seen: Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me… For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:8–10).
