a broken hal.le.lu.ia

brokenness, it's such an over-used ... over-slanged ... over-loaded term in the circles i run in. it's often used to signify someone who has made a positive step toward God. someone humbled, committed, broken before the Lord in an act of service and worship to a creator. it's a good thing. all too often it also refers to a crazy negative life situation, a severe depravity that is unquenchable by the things of this world. live's filled with striving and strife trying to plug holes that none only grow larger and more jagged with each passing offense.

far too often i find myself falling somewhere between these two extremes. this day was one of those days... a broken normal*ness had gotten me so bogged somewhere between the heavenly and the unholy. what a waste. struggling to take the leap of faith to walk daily while trying to put on the face of a pastor and advice giver. i had a guy in my office after church who is really struggling with some tough stuff right now. i listened to his story and heart honestly, hoping that maybe God would somehow insert some words. they came but it was almost as if God was speaking to Him in spite of me. just needing some vocal chords to use for a couple minutes to speak into this guys life. while i consider it a huge privilege to be a pastor and love what i do, it comes many times at a cost of feeling so fake.

I should stop here for a second and say that God has been very gracious to me and i love and serve him with my whole heart, but as most mature christ followers know some days feel rough... this particular day was one of them for me.

as we worshipped the Lord that morning in church i was reminded of this song by Jeff Buckley called "halleluiah"... it's not a "christian song" and i wouldn't recommend that everyone just run to iTunes and grab a copy but it has a phrase in it that always strikes a chord with me. it goes "love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"... this word, hallelujah, literally means "praise the Lord" in Hebrew: hallel = praise and jah = short name of God (see i did learn something in my OT hebrew classes). this phrase reminds me though that way too often our praise is a dedicated willingly forced offering to our God who is supremely worthy in spite of our life situations, in spite, in fact, of our brokenness.

all this begs the question in my mind of "why then is it that our spiritual joy is such a rare commodity?" what are we doing wrong? maybe our attitude needs to be aligned more with christ as Hebrews 12.2 reminds me;

fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Christ himself saw what was to come and the joy of that gave him the strength to endure what most of us would consider more than just a "bad day." he literally (the god of the universe, eternally in communion with his father) took on our sin, separating him from the father as an atoning sacrifice... this was the ultimate act of love, but enacted for the joy of the result. we can now come to God through Jesus christ as an un.broken person. our sin has been paid for. by the way, if you're still reading and haven't heard it recently, GOD LOVES YOU A LOT!

so how do we take our broken hallelujah's and make them whole again? i think we need to come to God daily in our brokenness and allow him to make us whole, or at least whole*r. God is in the business of redemption and restoration. he's the one who takes the mess and falseness that our sin enslaves us to and makes it into something beautiful. another song rings in my ears as i type this and it's called "beautiful things" by a band called gungor. it's refrain rings out; "you make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of dust, you make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us." may that reality make our praises of god into something authentic and pure.

broken.ness can be a great thing but may our worship to the almighty god who forgives the sins of his children be unbroken and holy...