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I picked up a memoir yesterday of a man who has battled addiction to cocaine and alcohol. The name of the book is “Broken” and this quote is on the first page…

A disciple asks the rabbi, “Why does Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts’? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?”
The rabbi answers, “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.”
—From “The Politics of the Brokenhearted,” by Parker J. Palmer

This speaks to the painful “beautiful undoing” that each of us must experience in order to truly know ourselves and our desperate need for God’s amazing grace. In recovery circles, we refer to this as our “bottom”…that point in time where we realize that not only have we put it in the ditch, but that we are powerless to get our lives out of the ditch. As God lovingly exposes our desperate need for Him, our self-sufficiency is stripped away and we begin to understand in new terms what a daily life of faith looks like.

Unfortunately, so much energy is spent among Christians trying to hide weakness and brokenness, rather than embracing it and connecting with others at that level. At the heart of our hiding is a deep unbelief of the Gospel. We say we believe that God loves us as we are, but live as if God is disappointed and even angry when we fall short. This line of thinking causes us to live as orphans separated from God trying to manage sin on our own and keeps us on a perpetual cycle of shame. We then put on our masks and “Sunday Best” and parade into church comparing what we know to be true about ourselves with what we think is true about those around us. What we fail to realize is that comparing our true selves with someone else’s pristine mask is always an unfair comparison. We are left believing that we must be the only one struggling, which causes us to retreat even further into the shadows.

Are you living today as a beloved child or as an abandoned orphan? In what ways are you hiding in the shadows instead of living boldly in the Light?

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Brent Thompson

Tray:

I am confident that revival would spread like wildfire through our country if God's people would only repent and become broken in and of ourselves before Him. Adrian Rogers once said, "Men usually throw broken things away, but God rarely uses anyone until they are first broken before Him." I also believe that the pathway to brokenness is getting a correct perspective on the nature and character of God. He loves us just as we are, but also loves us enough to not allow us stay the way we are. Thanks for your posts about men being "real" and living in transparency. I am encouraged to be a man of God much more by understanding the need to be real. God bless you, your family and your ministry.

Brent Thompson
Proverbs 30:5

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Traylor Lovvorn

Thanks for the comment, Brent! Hope everything is going well with you and your family.

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Jesse

Loved this – and I have to say the absolute worst thing we can do is drag our "pretty face" into not just church, but a recovery group. I see this happen sometimes – putting on appearances in the very place we're supposed to feel safe putting them down. This is exactly what I used to do in AA, and why I made a great AA except for the part where you stay sober! I'm blessed right now with a CR table that is very gut level – in fact, I have everything I prayed for in this group before we launched it. But I'm sure that's just coincidence

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Nicole Wick

I love you. Sorry for being mush on your blog, Tray but I had to say it!

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Nicole Wick

"We say we believe that God loves us as we are, but live as if God is disappointed and even angry when we fall short. This line of thinking causes us to live as orphans separated from God trying to manage sin on our own and keeps us on a perpetual cycle of shame."- This is so true. And the sooner people realize that this cycle is broken though wen it is brought into community the sooner true healing, and true living can begin. Good post!

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JennyRain

"At the heart of our hiding is a deep unbelief of the Gospel." <—— Functional Atheism

This post is awesome – I love how the rabbi talks about the fact that we lay the words on top of our hearts until our hearts are broken and the words fall in… I wonder how many of us layer Christianity on top of a deep dysfunction, rather than letting God recreate us from the inside out? I wonder how many of us, as we layer words, are simply layering new dysfunction?

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Traylor Lovvorn

Oh yes…so true Jenny! I think there are many that are using Christianity as a neat and tidy veneer, but Jesus bids us to come and die. As A.W. Tozer reminds us…it is very bloody and painful when the flesh is ripped out and dies.

One of the things I discovered during my own recovery that my flesh often convinced me that it wanted to help me serve God rather than to die. It seemed reasonable, so I allowed my flesh to hang around. Scripture is clear that the flesh is at war with the Spirit. There can be no compromise when it comes to bringing our flesh to the altar daily.

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David Graves

I can relate to the bottom in my own story. I struggle to find the words for how my sin wounded others, broke trust and relationships, and ultimately led to my public unmasking. I attempted to hide my spiritual shame from the vicious cycle of works righteousness that if I just did better or performed then I could somehow merit God's love for me. I love what Tal Prince often says that God loves us because He made us and we had nothing to do with it. I took my eyes of eternity. I lost sight of the truly important. I am God's beloved. I am learning to celebrate that in small steps with a great God. I do limp and I am okay with that. The verse that seems to snapshot my undoing is Romans 1:25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

The beautiful portrait of recovery is Psalm 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

It is all for His glory and for the sake of His great name. Thank you Tray for sharing your story and giving others hope in taking off their own mask.

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