God is not healing me so that I become useful to Him, he is healing me because He love me, and so that I can be free, so that I have an increased capacity to know Him and enjoy Him, to know and enjoy Life.  May we always ‘be’ witnesses in sack cloth and ashes.    -quote from ‘willie’

In theshackbook forum, my brother wileybones wrote this in reference to the above quote:

My previously conditioned sense of "significance" and "usefulness" were key driving forces in who I understood myself to be for too many years, and were easily manipulatable by those around me who were so inclined. As I grow in my experience of Father’s love for me, my freedom grows from these things. I agree that my brokenness is less something to be overcome than that which Father better reveals Himself through, since anything which others may be drawn to in my life will clearly be understood for what it is, "God at work in (me) both to will and to work for His good pleasure".

Of course, there is that within me which longs to be healed from all that is yet to be put right in me, to know and enjoy Him more fully, and to see others He brings me into relationship with coming into that same freedom. But I’m still at risk of adopting an agenda of trying to make it happen. I’m still not totally free of that in me which wants to please others…

It is a journey with ruts and potholes along the way!

I so appreciate wileybones’ thoughts and even more the intent behind them that reflects desire born of the Spirit.  Especially his first sentence: there is a wealth of value and much that can be learned from those words as they relate to the issue of ’significance’ and how easily that ‘need’ can be manipulated.

But I would like to push him a little on something else; maybe even toward greater freedom.  Let me begin with this statement, "The character and nature of God is better revealed by our healing than by our brokenness."  Those around us are not attracted to us because of our brokenness, but by the hope that they perceive in our freedom and wholeness and ability to truly love. 

There is a semantics issue here with the term ‘brokenness’ and I digress to clarify for a moment.  If we mean by brokenness the humbling of the human heart, the bending of the knee (as in the breaking of a wild horse) then we are speaking of something that is actually evidence of and is a true manifestation of our wholeness. 

But often we use the term (and if I am not mistaken, this is how it is used above) to describe that ‘we are broken’, hurt by the world, by our choices…damaged.  In that sense, ‘brokenness’ is a reflection of our hurt and the corruption of the world and its systems.   There is nothing in Jesus that is ‘broken’ in this sense, and people flock to be around Him.  Why?  In part because the beauty and radiance of Father shines so clearly and cleanly through Him.  Even more, his ability to ‘identify’ with damaged human beings, and they with him, is evidence of his wholeness, not because he has been involved in the same damaging behaviors and choices.

What this means, in part, is that the process of healing that God works into our lives is toward brokenness in the first sense, and away from it in the second. 

There is at least one major lie that confuses us in all this.  Here it is: "I can do something to heal myself."  Or, maybe even more subtle, "I can do something to help God heal me."  Both of these lies contain the idea of independence, that apart from God, I can do something.  The truth is, as hard as it is to understand initially, is that "Apart from Jesus, I can do nothing."  But isn’t trusting in Him, resting in Him etc…doing something?  You cannot ‘do’ either of these independent of His activity in your soul…which means that every incremental movement in ‘resting’, ‘trusting’, ‘relying’ etc, is a celebration of His love and power in you…a breath of wholeness permeating your person, a scent carried on the wind to be picked up by those around who have not caught that fragrance or aroma before except perhaps in some dream and longing of the heart.

Jacob’s Well did not have to go find people to give its water to; people found out where they could go to get water.

-willie