Weekly Devotional: Shattered Glass

John 4:1-42, Romans 3:23-24

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of waterwelling up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)

In season three of “How I Met Your Mother,” there is an episode entitled “Spoiler Alert.” Have you seen it? It’s an episode where this group of friends spills each other’s quirks to one another. Whether it is chewing loudly or idiosyncrasies of correcting people, these habits were magnified once they were pointed out. This is followed by the sound of crashing glass. Once each other’s quirks were revealed, that’s all the group could focus on. The character’s views of one another were shattered.

This even happens within our classes. Have you ever been listening to a speech and the person talking says “like” or “umm” a lot? It’s hard to un-hear all of the filler words that student uses and suddenly it’s all you can focus on. The eloquence of the speech has been shattered.

This is what we think is going to happen when we come in front of God. When we bring our troubles, our brokenness and our faults to God; there is a big shattering of glass and His perception of us is now completely shattered.

When we are real with people, perceptions are always shattered. But it is easy to think that everyone has everything together. It’s simple to look at your neighbor and think that they don’t have any problems. Even more so, it’s very simple to idolize celebrities in thinking that they have it all together.

Here’s a secret…they don’t. Nobody has it all together.

Romans 3:23-24 says,

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

That means that we have been broken and shattered in one way or another. We take our brokenness and attempt to hide it, mask it and cover it up.

Lying to Jesus

This whole idea of covering up our brokenness is seen in John 4 when Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well. This is a pretty famous story of how Jesus was someone who crossed cultural and gender barriers, at that time, to speak hope into this woman’s life. A really cool and inspiring story, however the very fact that this woman lies to Jesus is usually glossed over.

In verse 16, Jesus tells her to go and get her husband and come back. She simply replies, “I don’t have a husband.” As blunt as Jesus can be he says back, “You’re right, you have had five and the man you are with now is not your husband.”

This woman purposefully evades the truth in fear and wanting to hide her brokenness from this man, who is the Messiah. During this time, being married multiple times as a woman was disgraceful. It is understandable that she would try to lie about it. But Jesus shows his unfiltered love to this lady who was an outcast and a social pariah. He sees past the brokenness and the shattered perceptions and he still offers her eternal life.

In the midst of our brokenness we have redemption. We have a saving grace that is given freely to us by a man named Jesus. Christ brings us this beautiful redemption as he brought to the woman at the well. It is a daily decision to accept the grace and mercy Christ gives us.

We need to know that God loves us despite our brokenness. Even when we come to Christ with our hearts closed, trying to hide our flaws, He loves us anyways. That is the beauty of the redemption found in Christ alone. It’s simply a matter of us accepting our brokenness and allowing God to restore us in Him.

“May the rich blessing of the Lord attend us, and grant us all remission of sins. May the Lord graciously protect us from all evil and mercifully preserve and keep us in all good, and May He who created and redeemed us preserve us for Himself unspotted to the end.” Amen.
(The Mozarabic Psalter)