I shared a little bit of my experience in being “broken” in the last post. Brokenness might mean experiencing:
- an overwhelming physical injury or illness (in my case, a severely broken)
- a relational situation that is deeply hurtful
- a wrong or bad decision you’ve made resulting in severe emotional, physical or spiritual injury to another
- a hurtful experience you’ve had at the hands of another
It might mean something else. Whatever the cause of the brokenness, we are left feeling numb, immobile, confused and disheartened.
It is especially hard when the brokenness is the result of the intentional actions of another. I alluded to this in the last post when I said the goalie had intentionally taken my leg out. That was hard to accept, and I pay for his decision to this day – yes, I can tell when it’s going to rain a couple days before anyone else because my leg starts hurting!
Seriously, though, it’s no fun to be hurt by others. This is particularly true when it’s ministry related. Christian leaders aren’t supposed to hurt others! The church should be an amazing place to work as you share a kingdom vision with brothers and sisters in Christ.
Right??
It should be, but that’s not always the case. In fact, at the risk of sounding cynical, I dare say that if you’ve been leading in ministry for very long, you’ve probably experienced some sort of hurt at the hands of your fellow believers. Unfortunately, we are all as human as the next person.
But how do you handle it? How do you handle it when a core leader gossips about you to others in order to undermine your leadership? How do you handle it when you are lied about, or given lip-service, or demeaned by someone who should be leading you? How do you handle it when you are dismissed from your job without explanation, only to see a friend of the lead pastor hired in soon after you leave? How do you handle it when senior leadership lies to your staff in order to promote their agenda? How do you handle a false accusation?
Any and all of these can be devastating and leave you broken. I know of specific cases where each of these happened in churches within the last two years. And every time, the one undermined, lied about…or whatever…was left broken.
I’ve been there, as have many of you. Stunned by the actions of church “leadership”. Devastated and broken. But details of any given story don’t really matter. What matters is how we’ve handled it. What we’ve learned. Who we’ve become as a result of it. And, most of all, how God was glorified – or not – because of our response. For each of the times I’ve experienced brokenness, this is the major lesson – it’s not about what happened, but about what God is doing.
We are often quick to quote Romans 8:28 . . . say it with me, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.”
Too often, though, we don’t have the proper definition of what that “good” is. It may not be what we think it is. Fortunately, God defines “good” in verse 29: “…to become like His Son…”
When we are broken, even at the hands of a church leader who should be the last to inflict hurt, we must believe that God will use it for “good” . . . that being to make us a little more like Jesus. That is the ultimate purpose of our brokenness.
I’ll share more on the process of brokenness – at least from my experiences – in the next post.
