Why Does God Use Broken People?

“God uses broken people.”

If you are a Christian you often hear this phrase. It is not a phrase that usually catches my attention. My response is usually something on the line of……..ok…..so….. next.

This week I am reading the writings of David in Psalms. David repeatedly thanks God for blessings, recaps his triumphs, and calls death and damnation down on his enemies.

God repeatedly rescues David, promotes his interests, and blesses him. God uses David to build Israel.

But…….David is the “poster child” for the “broken man”.

We meet King David on a fine spring day in his palace…….where he is a coward, voyeur, adulterer, liar and, ultimately, a murderer. In a few introductory paragraphs, he violates about half of the ten commandments. Later, he occasionally shows mercy to Saul, but, on balance David really isn’t a very nice guy.

There are many others:

Adam was disobedient.

Jacob was a liar and a cheat.

Noah was a drunk.

Rahab was a prostitute.

Solomon was promiscuous.

Judah had sex with his daughter in law.

Peter denied Jesus.

Judas betrayed Jesus.

I could go on.

We look at these people…….and we say, “OK, I may mess up from time to time……but I never did that!”

The first simple fact is this:

God uses broken people because he has no choice…….we are all broken. We shop around til we find somebody more broken than we are. We pat ourselves on the back and say I’m OK…….because I’m better than Joe.

But the second simple fact is this:

On God’s scale of righteousness, there is no meaningful difference between me and David……or Rahab……or Judas…….or Hitler.

How do we deal with this?

First, we have to stop patting ourselves on the back…..we have to stop putting confidence in our own righteousness……….because it isn’t enough…..not by a long shot. We must come to grips with the reality that we are a mess. We are not able to undo the wrongs that we have done, and only God can fix us. We must humble ourselves.

Second, we must open ourselves to the thought of being used…….by God. There is no stain on my character that is so bad that God cannot use me……..or you. Time and again, in the Bible, God approaches a broken man, or woman, with a job to do………..and the broken man says, “Here I am……send me”.

My challenge for all of us is that we must first humble ourselves and then allow ourselves to be used by God.

I have a mallet in my woodshop. It is decades old. It has pounded on tens of thousands boards and tools. It is covered with grime and dried glue. It is chipped and gouged. By any measure, it is an ugly mess. But I use it every day to create beautiful things. If I lost it, I would miss it desperately, glue, gouges, and all.

I hope to someday become such an ugly broken tool in God’s hand.

You can too.

All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.

David, NIV

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

Isaiah, NIV