The challenge...to use the word prompt of the day and write for five minutes flat..." no extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation. Unscripted. Unedited, Real."
I will admit...today I went over the five minutes. It's soooo hard for me to do this in five minutes flat. But I will still participate even when I go over because this has been a great discipline to get me writing again.
Broken
Go...
We live in a broken world.
Yes...our world is broken. The brokenness surrounds us, in our cities, in our neighborhoods, in our houses, even in ourselves.
We live in a broken world because we live in a fallen world. Our brokenness stems from the fact of a severed relationship between God and man....way back in the beginning...in the garden. Sin entered the world at that point severing the perfection of the relationship between God and mankind. Sin...in the form of a choice...to desire to be as a god, to choose one's own desire and notion of what is good over obedience to God. No longer would man walk in the garden with God, the one who truly knows what it is to be good.
But God is love and God is good.
And so...from the beginning He had a plan and a purpose. He would send His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. To be born, a baby, and grow into a man to walk this earth...fully human and yet fully God. Emmanuel...God with us. He lived out his short life on this earth in perfection...in perfect relationship with the Father...sinless.
Yet he suffered as we all do...he suffered pain, persecution, abuse, bullying, and more. He was even led into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan...in ways that represent every kind of temptation that is common to man.
And yet...HE DID NOT SIN. He fought back with the very Word of God. He was and is the Word...the very bread of life.
And then He walked in the garden with His Father.
In the garden, much different than that other garden so long ago. In this garden, He would be betrayed by one close to Him. He was taken and beaten and stripped and spat upon and finally...crucified on a cruel cross. He died and was placed in a tomb.
BUT HE DID NOT REMAIN IN THE TOMB!! He arose from death to life. There were hundreds of eyewitnesses to this fact. He beat death, He beat sin, He beat Satan's hold over this world. Finally... He returned to the right hand of the Father.
Leaving us...but not as orphans. We have the Holy Spirit to help us fight not only our own battles but the battles of the broken ones of this world. We have the Holy Spirit to breathe life back into our broken lives.
But do we avail ourselves to this gift? The enemy wants us to believe that we are all still broken. That it is all helpless, that he has won. But the war has already been won by Christ...we have battles and skirmishes to fight out on this earth...but the ultimate victory is ours in Christ Jesus! Because He rose we know that we who are in Christ will also one day rise with Him.
So every morning I walk in my 'garden': my quiet place with God. Yes, "He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me that I am His own." And because of this, I can trust all of my broken pieces into His healing hands. Oswald Chambers said it best,
“Leave the broken, irreversible past in God’s hands and step out into the invincible future with Him."
How about you?
Have you placed the brokenness of your life into the hands of Jesus?
Now it's your turn...
1. Write for 5 minutes flat - no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you &encourage them in their comments.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you &encourage them in their comments.
Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community...
