broken

We were feeding a group high school kids hamburgers at our house one time. As normal with kids, it was a little rowdy, a bit unorganized and a whole lot of fun. This one girl, Dani, was holding her plate and another kid ran by, probably running for his life, being chased by a girl with fire in her eyes, which was normal for this particularly obnoxious kid. When he ran by his elbow hit Dani's plate and knocked off half her food, including her hamburger. An expletive rang out as she stooped down to pick it up. Chris was standing next to her and said, "it's okay, 3 second rule". She replied "no....it's tainted now." Then Chris said, "just brush it off a little and it'll be untainted." Dani said, "you dope, once something is tainted, it can't be untainted."

Half the reason people feel distant from God is they feel tainted and they feel like there is nothing that can untaint them. That it's to late for them and God hates them because they are just broken.

You know, the thing is Jesus spent a lot of his time with tainted and broken people. In fact, he spent so much time with them the "religious leaders" criticized him, calling him a drunk and glutton, that all he liked to do was hang out with sinners and party. Jesus simply said "the doctor is here to heal the sick, not the well." In other words, Jesus came to untaint them and he came to untaint us....

We believe the lie that we can't be unbroken, but, Jesus is attracted to our brokenness. Through our brokenness he unbreaks us. His greatest miracle probably is that he loves us so much, just the way we are, that he unbreaks us...