By Chris Broniste
Each time that I sit down to write a monthly newsletter I am confronted with the question: what to write about this month? So much happens in a week let alone a month. What could I possibly write about now? But every month like clockwork I am reminded of a particular trial and the extraordinary way that God has met our family needs in and through it. And just like that I am presented with the subject of our next update. True story. It is 1:12a in the morning as I write this. I am both utterly exhausted and compelled to write the following:
God often meets us in the broken places to remind us once again that He alone can make us whole. He alone can rescue us from the tyranny of our own decision making. He alone can see us through the maddening complex disappointing & mysterious trial that we call life. He alone can expose the raw nerve we hide behind our endless activities. No other person, place or thing can fill the void that we create when we try in our own strength to do His job for Him.
The problem is, the only time we are able to really see this is when we have exhausted all of our own resources. Only in those moments of profound loss, brokenness & bankruptcy do we see who we really are and how we have replaced the One who made us with things that are made with human hands. Right? I know I'm not the only one who does this. Surely we all do it, especially in seasons of crisis. We clamor to things we know cannot possibly save us in hopes that this time they will. And they never do. And they never will because they can't. There is only One Savior in this broken world. And it is not us, not any of us. But like children we have to prove that on our own by exhausting our own resources completely first.
And once we have done that, once we are at the end of our selves and our own temporary resources, then we cry out to God because we finally see our need for Him. And what does He do simply because He loves us? He condescends to us like a loving father in our brokenness, to meet us where we are at in the hurt & disalllusionment of our own inability & failure, not to rub it in our faces mind you or even just to fulfill some earthly temporal need we believe we have to have or may genuinely need. No. He comes to do so much more for us than that. He comes to reveal Himself to us in a way that we will not soon forget because He knows that this life is temporary and the only thing that truly matters in the life to come is the relationship we have with Him and the relationships we have with others.
Sit on that for a minute and consider. The God of the universe is more concerned with the health of our relationship with Him and the relationships we have with others than He is with the trinkets & bobbles, the places, promotions & provisions we desperately cling to and plead to Him for in prayer. He cares more about the state of our heart than He does our physical health our temporary homes happiness or hope. That is not to say that He does not care at all about those things. He cares very much for our sake. It is only to say that He cares much less about those things than we do. They are not idols to Him or impossibilities He can do nothing about. He knows full well that it is nothing for Him to provide those things for us which are best in His timing according to His will. But He wants much more than that for us. He wants our hearts wholly set upon Him, resting in His promises for our sake.
He wants our hearts to be free from the tyranny of the urgent; the pressing of the now. He wants to set us free from the burden of worry and stress, from the fear of the unknown. And the only way to do that is to ground our heart in the reality of who HE is, the reality of the gospel, the reality of His Son and the life He laid down for our freedom. It is as Paul wrote in Galatians,
"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." -Galatians 5:1
I think we all will agree that the fear of the unknown, the restlessness of concern and worry is not really liberty or freedom at all. It is a yoke of unending bondage draining the life out of us, a burden that God in Christ has committed Himself to relieving us from. But in order to do that He must first convince us that we are carrying a burden to begin with or we will only ever fight Him when He goes to remove it from us. So He presses us, brings us to the places where we cannot carry the burden on our own. He leads us through the valleys of humiliation and longing despair and death to bring us to the end of ourselves.
And that my dear friends is the place that my family and I have been for the past week and a half: with our resources depleting, a job provided and then taken away just 24 hrs later, tired of living in a hotel, weary from looking for work, worried about how we are going to make it when Cindy's last paycheck comes and goes, wondering when God is going to finally provide the job I need to provide for our family. And do you know what God has done? You guessed it! Not at all what we expected. Instead, He has exposed our unbelief, revealed our apathy, our idolatry and our penchant for clinging to the temporal and temporary. In a word He has revealed to us the myriad ways that we have replaced Him in our marriage our ministry and our family, and all of this for our benefit. And contrary to what you might think it has actually been quite freeing. Granted it's not the answer to prayer we were expecting. But it's been freeing none the less to see who we really are and find out that He has not changed in the slightest.
He still has a plan for us whether we see it or not. And He is still good. He led us here to heal the wounds we could not see from the burdens we did not know we were carrying. Has anything in our outward situation changed? Nope. Not at all. Do I believe it will? Yes. I do. I really do. But even when they do, nothing will really change because He doesn't change. Sure we might be more comfortable on the outside. But the same redemptive work will be going on, in the inside. We will still be in need of a deeper revelation of who we are and who He is, in spite of us, how desperately we need Him and how available and able He is to fill the void in the broken places that we too often try to fill without Him. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that there will always be a need of some kind and He will always be there to provide what we really need, whatever that looks like.
And because of that, and because I see that, I feel like maybe for the first place we are finally on our way to being truly healthy as a family in our relationship with God and our relationships with others. Sure it's going to be a long road ahead of us. And sure we will falter and we will fail. But as the scriptures say God is for us no matter what happens. So if He is for us who can really be against us?
I hope if you take anything away from what you have just read, it is this: do not fear to walk with God in the broken places. Do not be afraid to confront your disalllusionment and despair. Do not be afraid to admit you cannot move forward. Do not be afraid to trust God with the places you are the most uncomfortable with going. Remember it is always in the hurt that God is manifest as the healer, in places of need that He is the provider, in places of brokenness that He is the restorer, in breaches of relationship that He is the redeemer. Trust God in the broken places and let Him do the impossible. It might be sorrow for a night but joy will come in the morning. I promise you. I have seen it with my own two eyes. He is faithful even when we are NOT because it is who He IS.
Thank you to all of you that supported us through the years. We owe a debt of gratitude to God for you kindness and generosity, your encouragement and prayers. May the Lord do for you as you have done for us.
Prayer Needs:
- A job for Chris that makes enough to at the very least rent a two bedroom apartment for now preferably in Lake Stevens, Snohomish or Everett.
- Cindy's health and stress level
- The boys to finish school out well
- Chris & Cindy to grow as a couple
- Emotional healing from Cindy's bout with cancer & chemo
Becca Joy
Mommy time :)
I'm Batman
Noah James!
Playing with the kiddos
