If I Were Broken

Sometimes it's the simplest of questions that provoke the deepest thoughts. And sometimes, sometimes, you need a 9 year-old boy to ask that question.

One afternoon the little boy's mum was cleaning out a kitchen cupboard full of items she rarely used when she found an old broken tin opener. She handed it to her son and asked him to throw it away. Instead of just tossing it into the rubbish bin, he asked if he could keep it.

Why in the world would a little boy want an old, dirty, useless tin opener? she thought.

He insisted he needed to keep it. Finally she said to him, "Honey, it is broken. I don't want it or need it anymore, so throw it away please."

"Well if I were broken, would you just throw me away?" he asked.

Huh? At that stage, she thought their conversation about a silly tin opener had gotten way too complicated! But it struck a chord in her heart and got her thinking.

And it got me thinking too.

How often do I look at myself in the mirror and see nothing more than an old, silly, rusty tin opener - something of no value in anybody's eye? How often have I thought that I was either too much of this or not enough of that, and have actually believed it was all up to me to get the balance right?

Someone once sang:

"Let him without sin cast the first stone, if you will.

To say that my bride isn't worth all the blood that I've spilled."

Perhaps I am of no value in people's eye - who knows? After all, for all I know, they could just be using me to get stuff out of me, money or help or emotional support or whatever. But the words from that song and the bible tell me it is not so with God. God, in the beginning, had all the rights to say: "Hmm. Those people I created, they're not really working any more. They're a bit broken. Can't be bothered trying to fix them. I'll just throw them away." And that would have been it.

Yet he didn't do that. Why? The bible tells me that that's because we have value in his eye, because he loves us (John 3:16). Despite the fact that all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:9), God has a fantastic purpose for us. Jesus gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:14) Jesus won't throw us away, no instead he gives us an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. (Ephesians 1:11) God is in the saving, healing, mending business.

In this world broken things and people get thrown away. Christ was broken to redeem our brokenness, make us beautiful and keep us forever.

'For the mountains shall depart

And the hills be removed,

But My kindness shall not depart from you,

Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,”

Says the LORD, who has mercy on you...

Isaiah 54:10

(NKJV)