Bent But Not Broken

[HKHaugan]

A short while back I was in Colorado skiing. After the last run we went to a cafe at the bottom of the mountain. A bluegrass group was playing there called ‘Bent But Not Broken.’ They were really good. As I listened to them I also took in the atmosphere. Four guys obviously rough hewn from hard work and life’s daily pace playing great music that was their outlet to take and own a piece of the world. The place was full of skiers leaving their off-the-mountain ‘pieces of the world’ for a break, a relief from whatever needed getting away from. We were all there having left something, maybe escaping, maybe just relaxing, maybe just hoping to find something. But it was the name of the group, ‘Bent But Not Broken’ that got my pondering juices flowing, something that happens frequently when the Spirit moves in my mind. Their name reminded me of Gen.6:5, “The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” In that skier’s café as I looked around, all of us were ‘bent but not broken.’

What is interesting in the Genesis verse is the word ‘inclination.’ The word suggests that we are inclined, that is, we have a tendency to lean toward something. We’re bent but we can still function. However, the ‘bentness’ inhibits us. That tendency is irreversible unless something comes to challenge and change it. People are bent out of shape but not broken. People are inclined, bent by sin, bent to sin, to be tempted, to choose evil and are born that way. That is why I said previously, “You see, each of us is born and grows up in the seclusion of our ego and find ourselves yearning to be a ‘some-one’ but end up being a ‘some-thing.’

The reason is we spend most of our time ‘bending,’ adjusting to the world’s standards of personal survival. We emotionally and intellectually ‘parry and thrust’ in a world of egos, each looking for our place in the sun. It’s all about ‘fitting in’ and it’s hard to do but our ‘bent’ nature finds a way. ‘Fitting in’ is becoming something we are not. So we become a ‘some-thing’ as opposed to a ‘some-one.’ That’s the incline. It’s a downward slant. The ‘some-thing’ might be a goal the world sets before us like being a star athlete, a famous actor, a respected leader, a well-known politician, a renowned novelist, a business success or anyone who goes after their ‘fifteen minutes of fame.’ (It’s not that these are bad. Rather it’s the motivation behind them.) And if we can’t be one of those we try to hang around with them and get fame by association. “I shook the hand of the hand that shook the hand…’ Or I just settle in and find a reason to feel justified. These kinds of things exemplify the fact that ‘every inclination of a man’s heart is only evil all the time.’

But being a ‘someone’ says something different. It means we have found out who we really are. It is not our self-consciousness that identifies us. It’s the quality and depth of the relationships we have. We are no longer a ‘something’ to another person. We are a ‘someone’ to them. And being a ‘someone’ starts with going to the source of what it means to have a relationship, namely the one we have been offered by God in Jesus. It is in Him we see that who we really are is an image and likeness of God. We are persons, individuals, designed to relate to Him and one another. This is the great revelation. Through Jesus we can be reborn spiritually to be a ‘someone.’ The incline can be reversed. Our inclinations don’t have to be just about self but can be God inspired.

We have been introduced to a new reality, a spiritual reality. In Jesus each of us has been made to have a unique relational experience with God and with one another. It is from that experience of God that everything else proceeds---the choices we make, the people we are led to meet, the places we go, the goals we set and, as a result, the character He builds in us. We become not a thing but a ‘someone’ uniquely placed in the middle of history to impact that part of the world in which we live. It is no longer world standards but God’s moment-by-moment influence wherever we are. It can be among a few or many. The point is this. We are a special ‘someone’ to Him and with His leading we move out to where He knows we can best become what He intended, what His inclination for us is, to be a ‘someone’ for Him and for someone else.

It is this relationship with God in Jesus that provides the give-and-take that shakes, sharpens and shapes us spiritually. We are shaken from sin, sharpened by faith and shaped in character. Again, we move from fear to faith, from self-protection to open honesty and from lonely isolation to relational confidence. We traverse the field from being bent by sin to a recovering life that breaks us away from being an empty ‘something’ to becoming a relationally productive ‘someone.’ We are tilted upward. There is a new incline to restore our inclination.

So to revise that initial idea of ‘bent but not broken’ we have been bent by sin. Then Jesus came and broke the bondage of sin to unbend us, to change the incline. Through the Holy Spirit our inclinations become His. Our motivations are energized by His inclination. This is how we become newly inclined and every next moment is finding the inclination to be God’s relational servant who no longer strives to a ‘something’ in the world because now we are a ‘someone’ in the eyes of our Creator. When we allow the Lord to change the incline then we are inclined to operate with the Spirit’s inclination.

All of this goes to show something spectacular, we may be bent but we’re not broken. The Lord won’t allow that. He has something much better for us. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God---not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Eph.2:8-10 NIV).”