We are all familiar with broken things—bicycles, computers, cracked windows. Once we deem something broken beyond repair, our instinct is to discard it. We buy it, it breaks, and we throw it away. Tragically, we often treat people the same way. Friends fail us—betraying our trust, revealing flawed character, or displaying broken morals—so we discard them, find new ones, and repeat the cycle.
Society shuns brokenness. It labels the broken as weak, helpless, and worthless. Yet what the world calls trash, God calls treasure. What society rejects, God remakes into something new.
When something is broken, we entrust it to a master craftsman. We take broken glass to the glazier, a broken bicycle to the mechanic, and a malfunctioning computer to the technician. Broken people, however, must be brought to the only One who can truly restore them.
For many of us, this realization is what drew us to God in the first place: we were broken and entirely incapable of fixing ourselves. Perhaps as you read this, you deeply identify with that feeling of complete brokenness.
Beyond our initial salvation, brokenness is also essential to serving Jesus. One spring afternoon, while driving through Sandusky, Ohio, I stopped at a red light across from a school. As the bell rang, students streamed across the street in front of my car.
Watching them scatter in every direction, a voice echoed deep within my spirit: “Who will tell them about me?” My heart broke instantly, and I wept. That moment reshaped my life forever. From that encounter came a conviction I captured in a single phrase: “God never uses what He hasn’t first broken.” I framed those words and hung them on the wall and on the door in every office I occupied over years of ministry—eventually becoming known to my seminary students as the professor with “the sign on the door.”
God taught me that effective ministry cannot depend on personal talent or intellect. God is not seeking to leverage our skills; He desires to possess our hearts. We often fall into the trap of thinking, “If only that influential person would accept Christ, imagine what God could do with their wealth, status, or talent!” But God does not need our money, social standing, or eloquence. He wants us. The world will not be reached by Christians striving in their own strength, but by believers who are completely surrendered to Him.
Until the Holy Spirit breaks your heart, you cannot experience His true power ministering through you. As Jesus promised, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). Are you operating in your own limited strength today? Let Him break your pride, so He can break your heart for the people He has called you to reach.