In Masterpiece of the Wilderness, Deanna wrote “I break down to nothing that which I desire to rebuild.” The other day, I was driving down CR6 in Elkhart and noticed that a building that had been sitting vacant for a few years had been torn down and a new bank was going to occupy the corner on which it once stood. The practical part of me said, “I wonder why they couldn’t just repurpose that old building into a bank?” But the reality is that remodeling is time-consuming and can even be as costly or even more so than just scraping the old and starting anew. Sometimes something has to be broken down to nothing so that it can be built again — where all the old is gone and what emerges is new, fresh, and ready for a different season.
The same is true of us, isn’t it? Sometimes we need to start with tearing down the way we have always done it, the ways we are used to operating, and start back from the ground and build it up new. Being broken and torn down is not pleasant or easy. It’s one thing to “demo day” a building — that can be fun and fulfilling to tear something down. Yet real life (aka “the human equation”) is vastly different than a physical structure devoid of emotion and cognition. Being broken means losing something (or someone) that you never imagined living without and there is real pain and loss in the process. I have talked to people who have gone through some incredibly devastating life events that have shattered them into pieces. And in the midst of that, they have chosen to cling to a tenuous thread of faith — one day at a time; clinging to healing and hope. This is the point, these are the moments where we choose to either grab hold of Christ and walk through the gritty process or choose to retreat inward into bitterness and anger. Bob recently said, [Believe it or not], “this process is a gift that reveals who we really are! We find that it’s in our brokenness and weakness that causes us to depend and lean in more to Christ. In fact, He allows us to see our own inability to do anything apart from Him. That’s a radical place to live when You realize you have nothing to offer. Human nature fights this tooth and nail. Those who find this truth have found a treasure. It brings us into a place of rest, of trust, of worship, of prayer.”
There we are .. on our face, or standing with shaky legs. In our weakness, in our dependency, in our faith in the One bigger than we are. Pushing forward. Looking upward. And when we find ourselves on the bare ground starting over, those familiar patterns are gone — the way we were accustomed to doing things — and in their place, new patterns and rhythms emerge. God is so intrinsically instrumental and invested in this process as He lovingly and graciously orchestrates the breaking so that we emerge pure, strong, and free.