Lent 2022: All the Broken Things

The Bookery's 2022 Lenten reading plan, All the Broken Things, kicks off on March 2. Join us as we delve into how Jesus has entered into our brokenness and redeemed it. To get a feel for the reading plan, please read over the introduction.

“God does not rewrite our stories; He redeems them.” —Andrew Peterson

Sometimes, truth be told, I want God to function more like an editor, to rewrite the pages of my story, drawing a stark, bold line through the hesitations, cutting away the disappointments and failures. I’d like him to rework the sentences, erase the sadness, the mistakes, the sinful choices, the shame.

But God isn’t about editing our stories. He isn’t cobbling together the best takes and leaving the rest on the cutting room floor. Our God is about redemption, about making things new. By nature of His very character, He enters into the ugliness and redeems it. He makes it new. He makes it beautiful. He takes what was broken beyond repair and puts it back together. He takes what is dead and restores it to life.

No amount of regret, shame or sorrow can edit away the parts of our stories we’d rather forget. But Jesus doesn’t ask us to fix it. He simply asks us to bring it all to Him. To lay it at His feet. To trust it to Him.

All the shameful things.

All the disappointments and griefs.

All the joy and delight, the triumphs and achievements.

All the pain, the times when our faith has been small, tinier than a mustard seed.

All the light and all the darkness.

All the broken things—the hurts, the shattered relationships, the fear, the mistakes, the sin, the failures.

There is coming a new day in a new city when all will be made new. He will wipe away every tear we’ve ever cried. And He will make all the broken things beautiful.

But if we open our eyes and our hearts, He’s already showing us glimpses of eternity here and now as he redeems our lives and begins redeeming what was broken and making it beautiful. It’s apparent in Jesus’ interactions with people throughout His earthly ministry, and, if you look hard enough at your own life, you’ll find beauty in the darkness there, too.

Where you feel shame, beauty.

Where you are mired in guilt, grief or disappointment, beauty.

In the moments of your greatest joy and delight, in the triumphs and the achievements, beauty.

In the pain and the places where hope seems small, a flickering candle in a dark abyss, beauty.

In all the broken things, beauty.

Jesus makes all things new. Even all the broken things.

Get your own print or digital copy of All the Broken Things on Amazon and follow the daily devotions and discussion here at The Bookery.