God does not want to keep you broken

I've heard people say, and seen the effects of people believing, that it's God plan to leave them broken, sick or struggling so He can use it for good.

God will use your brokeness, it's true. He will use what you have been through to help others. He will work all things together for good for those who love Him. 

But it is a huge fallacy to think that means you have stay where you are, in your pain, so that God can use it to help others.

How can you give a testimony to how God can heal our hurt, our sickness, our brokeness, if you are still in it? How can you lead people through their pain to the other side, if you don't even know where that is because you've haven't got there yourself?

Don't get me wrong - God can and will use you where you are. He can use anything and anyone, no matter how imperfect or broken. He can bring unfathomable good in even the most difficult circumstances. But just because God is using you while you are still sick or broken, does NOT mean he wants you to stay there.

"Many people followed Him, and He healed them all" Matt 12:15

There is no addendum to that verse, no fine print that says *"except for the few he let stay sick so that they could empathise with other sick people".

Sure, you may find comfort in talking to others who are experiencing the same thing as you. It may help the burden not feel so heavy. But who can help you more - someone who is also struggling the same as you, or someone who once struggled, but has found freedom?

If you are blind, another blind person can only teach you how to cope as a blind person. Jesus can teach you how to see!!

It is not God's will for you to stay sick, hurt or broken. Jesus didn't die and rise again so that you could stay as you are. He didn't conquer sin and death so that you could just battle on, and try and prop up others also struggling.

He died and rose so you could be free! So you could be healed! So you could have life!

Don't believe the lies and doubts that maybe God wants you to stay where you are. If we are to pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and there is no sickness and brokeness in heaven - then that's what we should be believing for on earth!!

And don't hold on to this belief as a security blanket. Sometimes we believe that maybe this sickness or struggle is God's will because if we let go of that idea, then we risk being disappointed. What if I don't get healed? What if God doesn't get me out of here? What if I believe that I'm meant to be set free, but find myself still a prisoner?

It's a scary place to be - to have stepped out from behind our protective lies, and into the wide open. And we don't know the exact timing of when and what God will do. Sometimes what is done in the spirit doesn't appear in the natural right away. Maybe it seems risky.

But if you can be sure that if you stay where you are, you definitely will not see change. 

Step out in faith. Give Jesus a chance to prove that he wasn't lying when he said that now is the time!

"He sent Me to tell those who are held captive that they can now be set free, and to tell the blind that they can now see. He sent Me to liberate those held down by oppression. In short, the Spirit is upon Me to proclaim that now is the time; this is the jubilee season of the Eternal One’s grace." Luke 4:18-19

It is our testimony of our personal and collective experiences of God's grace, love and freedom that will draw people. Anyone can say to a sick person "I know how you feel". 

But don't you want to be able to say, "I know how you feel - but I also know the one who can make you well!!"

If you want to be put back together, if you want to be healed, get to know the healer.

Hey, God, are you forgetting something?

Genesis 40 tells us how Joseph, unfairly languishing in a dungeon, finally gets his big break. Two men who are close to Pharaoh are in prison too and Joseph, with the blessing of the Man upstairs, interprets their dreams for them. One of them is executed, but that's neither here nor there. Point is, he interpreted right.

And the other one, the cup bearer, gets out of jail and goes back to work for Pharaoh. And when Joseph asks the cup bearer to remember him to Pharaoh, to help a brother out, the cup bearer agrees.

Joseph must have been thinking, "Yes! Finally! God sent someone to get me out of this place!"

And then the cupbearer forgets.


Wait, what?

Turns out that it wasn't his big break after all. He was still in jail. For two years. TWO YEARS!
I don't know about you, but I can get impatient waiting for God to come through on his promises for two weeks.

And this came for Joseph after being in prison for 'some time' already - and in the wonderfully understated way the Bible does it, that probably means 'a lot of time'. And then before that, being sold into slavery by his own brothers.

Joseph knew how to wait. He had been waiting. But imagine how crushing, to think the time has finally come when your waiting is over, when God is going to come through on his promises and lift you up to a higher place. And then he doesn't.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has felt like God promised something, and then forgot. It's like when you were a child, and you asked your parents for something; they'd tell you they would think about it - and then they would forget.

Sometimes we think of God like a forgetful or preoccupied parent, and think he must have overlooked us. Surely those promises he made are meant to have happened by now? And then something happens, and we latch onto it - this is it. Surely this is the plan, I can see it now! And then it doesn't happen. And we are still waiting.

But maybe waiting is part of the plan. We can't see 2 minutes ahead of right now; God sees it all. Maybe, just maybe, he knows the right timing better than we do?

Joseph had to keep waiting. The cup bearer may have forgotten. But it came back. When Pharaoh had a dream, the cup bearer remembered him, and Joseph was able to interpret the dream. The cup bearer remembered at just the right time for Joseph to show the power of God to the ruler of Egypt.

The things we are doing now in the waiting aren't for nothing. The things we do now will come back to us, they will be remembered, and they will be important at exactly the right time.

Make the waiting productive. Joseph was sold into slavery at 17 and made overseer at 30. But he didn't just sit around and wait impatiently in the meantime - God made him successful in everything he did, even when that was in a dungeon.

God wants to renew us, and build our strength and character, he wants to lead us to focus on the right things. He knows exactly where we are going, and what we will need once we get there. God keeps his promises, but in his perfect timing.

If you are waiting for those promises, make the most of this time. Nothing is wasted. God has not forgotten you.