Broken spirit

Broken spirit is worse than heartbreak. It is when your heart, soul and spirit are crushed. Life itself can break your heart. A person with a broken spirit has lost all hope, all faith and they are just surviving. Going through the motions. Yes, you can go sadness for a few days or weeks after a romantic break up but a broken spirit lasts longer. It is life itself beating you black and blue. It is a life circumstance that seems to have gone on forever like sickness, infertility and whatever other hopeless situation you had to endure.

What do you do when life itself doesn’t make any sense? When all hope and faith feels drained out of you? There are stories in the bible that will help us navigate our brokenness. The problem is most people carry broken spirits but are not aware. They numb themselves with drugs and alcohol, they suppress every feeling and might end up worse. Some of us will develop mental health issues due to a broken spirit. A world without hope is not a world worth living. 

Exodus 6:9 Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.

The children of Israel carried a broken spirit of hopelessness. It’s hard to have hope when facing difficult situations. Slavery had taken away hope and faith from the children of Israel. They had no strength left to fight their circumstances. Are you in a similar situation where you have no strength to fight against what seems like a persistent situation? God is able. He still came through for the children of Israel, freeing them from slavery even though they had become hopeless.

Luke 1:18-20 And Zechariah said to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife has advanced in years." And the angel answered him, "I am Gabriel, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time."

Zechariah, the father of John, a high priest, showed lack of faith. Elizabeth, his wife, was barren, and he had lost his faith that they would ever have a child. Zechariah, showed lack of faith and the Lord God had to shut him up until after the birth of his child, John the baptist. What do we say that stops our blessings? Can we shut up about the negative circumstances in our lives until God does what he needs to do? Keeping faith is hard when the world feels against you. It’s time that you keep your faith alive, no matter the circumstance.

John 5:6-8 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed? The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me. "Jesus said to him, "Get up, take your bed, and walk."

The man Jesus heals at the pool of Bethesda had been invalid for 38 years. That is a long time. He had been lying at the pool of Bethesda and had given up on himself. He would get up but someone else would get before him and jump into the pool before him. Even when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed, he replied that he had tried. I understand this man because I too want to shout at times that I am trying. I have tried. But I have to remind myself that when Jesus walks into my life, my heart is open to receive the healing I have waited for for decades. I try to not give up on myself.

Ruth 1:20 She said to them, "Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 

Naomi had a broken spirit. This is a woman who lost a husband and both her sons. Not only that, she had had to travel outside of Israel due to a drought. She was a foreigner and lost her whole family in a foreign land. She was left with two daughters-in-law that she had to let go of because there was nothing else she would do for them. Life’s hardship can make us better or bitter. You decide. Bitterness distances us from the Lord.

2 Kings 5: 11 – 13

Naaman the Syrian was a man of stature, a great man by all accounts but he was a leper. He visits Elisha the prophet after hearing from the enslaved servant of his household. Naaman is given a simple solution to his problem; to go and wash in Jordan seven times and his flesh would be restored and he would be made clean. But Naaman in his pride, had a misguided expectation for prophet Elisha. He was willing to walk away because the healing was not going to happen in the way he expected. His servants had to tell him to follow through. Let’s not hold expectations against God so that when your blessing or your healing comes, you are not walking away because it doesn’t look like what you had in mind. He was using his power as a vice to cope with his brokenness.

1 Kings 19:4 But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying "It is enough;now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers."

Elijah’s heart was broken after all that he had done, destroying the prophets of baal. But he was being harassed and targeted by Jezebel. There was a threat on his life. Elijah the prophet became a man with a broken spirit. He wanted to die in the wilderness. He withdrew from his servant, his followers and from his duties as a prophet to be in solitude. Brokenness can lead to isolation. But God intervenes for us. God did not leave Elijah alone in his isolation but gave him food and strength to carry on.

The Samaritan woman was ashamed of her love life. She had to wait until afternoon to go to a well to get her water. The Samaritan woman was full of shame and knew that other women were judging her. She had had five previous husbands and the man she was living with was not her husband. She lived with a broken spirit of shame. Jesus intervened. The woman became an evangelist to her people because she listened to the good news. The story is in the gospel of John chapter 4.

Job became a jaded man after losing his family, wealth and health. He fell into despair. Job’s friends came to see him and were as comforting as most Christians these days. He held on to hope even when he did not understand why all the calamity had fallen on him. He stayed faithful where most of us would fail. Jaded yes, broken definitely but he let God work in his life nonetheless. Can you be jaded and still trust God? Will you still read your bible, go to church and fellowship when your whole life has fallen apart?

Hold on to God even when life doesn’t make sense. We can feel broken at times but God uses broken vessels all the time. All the people mentioned in this post where broken, but they did the best they could with what they had. Broken spirit doesn’t have to mean giving up on God, it has to mean getting us closer to God. Let’s worship Him in spirit and truth.

Psalm 34:18 The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.