"Have You Ever Prayed For Brokenness?"

The Bible states that our hearts are more deceitful than anything else and desperately wicked and that we cannot know it.  (Jeremiah 17:9)  In light of the state of our heart, "Have you ever prayed for brokenness?"  What I mean is have you ever prayed and petitioned God to break you over your sins so that you would be aware of them?  Since our heart is deceitful and wicked by nature we are in need of something/someone outside of ourselves to bring to light the secret (or so we think) sins that hinder our relationship to God.  That is where praying for brokenness comes in.  If we are truly desiring to live in right relationship with God we will seek any way to be rid of the very thing that hinders that relationship - SIN.  King David, several times alluded to this very process.  In Psalm 32 David cries out "When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer."  David was physically/emotionally/mentally broken because of his own initiative but God in His grace was breaking David so that he could see his sin and repent and turn back to God.  David continues on revealing the product of his being broken.  He declares "I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide;  I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord'; and You forgave the guilt of my sin."  Because God was working on David to break him, David was able to see his sin and return to God and in return God sis not further break him but forgave him and removed his guilt.  Several other times does David give witness to the work of God braking him to show him his sin to restore their relationship.

Another instance that this key aspect of the Christian life is found is Hebrews 12.  Over half of the chapter deals with the discipline/chastisement which the Lord enacts on His children. Verses 5-6 says, "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives."  The very fact that God seeks to bring us to the place of brokenness/repentance reveals His love for us and our belonging to Him.  The chapter goes on to say in verse 8, "But if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons."  The discipline that God uses to break us is not for mere divine entertainment but is fruitful for believers.  It first causes us to see our sin and run to God in repentance.  It leads us to holiness, righteousness, and the encouragement of fellow believers who are facing the same circumstances in their walk.  God breaks us so that He may be remake us into the image of Christ.

To pray for brokenness may seem contrary to the contemporary idea of the purpose of prayer, but that form has gotten us nowhere.  The biblical idea of prayer is not to get God to change or to do what we think is beast rather it is for us to come to Him in humility to be changed (broken if I may) by Him.  Because of the deceitfulness of sin and our hearts we need God to remove the veil from our eyes that blinds us from the sins that hinder our relationship with God.  We must; it is imperative that we pray to be broken continually by God over our sin.  If we do not we will be broken anyway just as a stubborn mule has to be broken by its master.  Be broken and be remade by Him in to His likeness.