Broken to Use

This excerpt by Watchman Nee was from the YouVersion Lent Reading Plan. It was the reading for Wednesday, but I have been chewing on it since then.

God must bring us to a point - I cannot tell you how it will be, but He will do it - where, through a deep and dark experience, our natural power is touched and fundamentally weakened, so that we no longer dare trust ourselves. He has had to deal with some of us very harshly, and take us through difficult and painful ways, in order to get us there... But then at last it is that He can begin to use us.

We would like to have death and resurrection put together within one hour of each other. We cannot face the thought that God will keep us aside for so long a time; we cannot bear to wait. And I cannot tell you how long He will take, but in principle I think it is quite safe to say this, that there will be a definite period when He will keep you there... All is in darkness, but it is only for a night. It must indeed be a full night, but that is all. Afterwards you will find that everything is given back to you in glorious resurrection; and nothing can measure the difference between what was before and what now is!

I've been especially thinking about being broken to a point that we no longer dare trust ourselves...and then it is at that point that He can begin to use us.  The process of being broken is never a fun one.  Jesus describes the Father as a Gardner, pulling up those that  produce no fruit and pruning those that do so that they may produce even more. Uprooting and pruning are both painful processes, but it's in that time that we are being broken. And God uses (but not necessarily cause) different circumstances to break us. It takes longer for some of us than others.  But it is not until we are fully reliant on God that he uses us. Some of us actually never get there, because we like to be in control to much. We trust ourselves too much to trust Him. 

But I love the final line in the piece. "and nothing can measure the difference between what was before and what is now." Once we are broken and used by God we are not the same as we were before.  And there is no ruler, tape measure, scale, or rubric great enough that can measure the change that has taken place in our life.

And if you think about it...God broke His only son to use Him in the greatest possible way. And He didn't just break Him, He crushed Him.....to death. 

So whatever breaking you are going through right now, know that you will soon be coming to a point that God will use you greatly. And at the end of the journey you will be VASTLY different than who you were at the beginning.  And you will be glad of the process it took to get you there.