Brokenness - Part 4 of 6

2. The second thing that hinders us from being broken is self-centeredness. We want our own will, not His. We want things to go the way we want them to go. We are angered when our will is crossed. We will seek to escape or dodge the trial in our life, instead of letting it shape us. We want what we want, and we will jolly well do whatever it takes to "make it happen".

When we see this in others, we are repulsed. It sickens us to see this, whether it's a child throwing a temper tantrum, or an adult thinking only of themselves. We see its evil so clearly in others, yet sometimes we despise it in others only because of our own self-centeredness. Sort of, "How DARE you think you are the center of the Universe! Don't you know that *I* am the center of the Universe? What about ME?!!?" Of course we don't say this, we only think it.

There is no direct remedy for this self-centered, self-indulgent, self-ish, self-aggrandizing attitude, except the work of brokenness itself.

And so we see a circle of brokenness. The more we are broken, the more we can be broken, so the more we're broken, and so the more we can be broken.

We may want to keep this in mind before we make foolish vows to the Lord. For example, I heard a song on the radio the other day that went like this:

"The Cross demands allegience. I'll give nothing less than all!"

Yeah, right. All!!?? Nothing less than "All!!??" Get real. We've got some breaking to do.

Unless you're Jesus Christ, you'd be wiser to stick with Keith Green's musical thought,

"Just keep doing your best, pray that it's blessed, and He'll take care of the rest...He's gonna do it...He'll take care of the rest."

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6