When God Breaks You to Make You - The Crosswalk Devotional - January 12
When God Breaks You to Make You
By Kelly Balarie
Bible Reading:
And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought… - 1 Chronicles 28:9
I stopped and stared... This weird tropical plant, with deep hues of green and big circular leaves, seemed to represent me – and where I am in life. It was an odd plant for sure… Why? Because I noticed small broken roots at the soil line. Rather than its roots staying underground, as most plants do, this one, as it pushed higher and grew taller, its roots broke. I could see a myriad of them shooting all over.
That’s odd. I thought roots should stay strong, intact, and underground, so the plant can remain nourished, stable, and secure. Yet this plant was an enigma.
I related to it.
Right now, it seems many of my solid roots are broken. In the new state I find myself in, the friends I relied on are gone. Ownership of personal possessions I do not really have. Normal schedules have been exchanged for random and unknown patterns during the day. My free time is not the same. Certainty of what’s ahead is not there. Stability seems to be a distant place. The health of family members is rocky. I can’t readily fix these undergirding’s.
My old stabilizing roots are broken.
Has this happened to you? Maybe you used to rely on a relationship, a friendship, a large bank account, your job, your time alone with God, and that has been severed in a way… Maybe you had an old way of thinking that has been completely broken? Maybe the way you thought God works has been uprooted.
What do we do when old stabilizing roots, break?
For me? This plant seemed to be preaching a message: God didn’t make the roots break to kill you, Kelly; God made the roots to grow you up, stronger.
The breaking of the plants roots was to make the plant grow higher. The breaking was to help the plant to trust the roots that were really needed now – for this season. The breaking was about that little plant showing the world – it’s okay for things to change, for old roots to break, and for elements to change. Even then, I will still stand tall!
If the plant could speak– it would be talking.
Even though God has broken roots, in my life, by removing friends, comfort zones, normal reliance, schedules, possessions – He is laying deeper roots and growing me up, in Him.
Removal is God’s remaking of a better root system. Removal remakes what, or Who, I put my trust in. Removal lays my heart bare – in the absence of other makers.
“…for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts…” (1 Chron. 28:9)
With everything else removed, I can see what has been “making me”, instead of the Maker Himself. I can see what I was really relying on – and the deep chasms only God can fill.
Sometimes, God allows things to make us; other times God removes those things to mature us. Then, in the gap the unknown, God reminds us – there is only one Maker of Heaven and Earth.
With all else stripped back – we see our loss of strength means we were not getting strength from God, but from other things. And, likewise, a huge opportunity exists for us to know His Almighty strength on new levels. This is exciting. We are about to grow up higher, into Him. We are growing up mature, strong and stable. Most of all, reliant on His deep roots, nothing will shake us and, like that plant, we will testify his glory to others. We will become the subject of other’s stories, just like that little green-hued tropical plant with broken roots.
Intersecting Faith & Life:
What is being stripped back in your life? Within the confines of that gap, what might God be adding in? What might He desire to do in you? Whether He caused it or not, we can be sure that He is allowing it and that He will use it for good. How can you stop looking at what is bad and start praising Him for the small glimmers of good that you see today?
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/AndreyPopov
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