God Chooses Broken Vessels

I was listening to a message

And I concluded the preacher was right,

God chooses broken vessels

Brokenness is every human’s plight.

We get so big up in our Christian life

As though we have reached the mark

Forgetting our common brokenness

And when we were in the dark.

We forget we are still broken

And the Potter still works with us

And our perfection is not our own

But our perfection is in Jesus.

That we are being made to conform

To the image of Jesus Christ

And that nothing in our self

Will ever be good enough to suffice.

That the same way we started out

Is the same way we must continue

And that our born again experience

Must be lived through and true.

King Saul messed up and David too

Did God not see this would happen?

Yet Samuel was told to anoint them

Didn’t God see both men were broken?

God made Solomon a King over Israel

And also the wisest man on earth,

Did he not see Solomon’s folly

From the very first day of his birth?

God chose Eli and Samuel too

And He revealed to him Eli’s problem,

But did you realize that the same thing

Also happened to Samuel’s children?

Both these men were priests of God

And they served in the temple faithfully

But as they came to their latter years

Their children did wickedly.

Did God not foresee all of this?

Like you, I have no doubt He did,

The Almighty God sees everything

And nothing from is view is hid.

But God chooses broken vessels

Vessels like me and like you,

It is He who qualifies the chosen

Starting with a life made brand new.

So when you see a brother sliding

You may be sliding too

But since your slipping is different

His may be the only one in view.

For it is natural to look out for blame

But look in when we seek praise

But every born again believer

From a broken vessel was raised.

In a real sense we are still broken

Though we have had a perfect birth,

But we will still be a work in progress

As long as we live on this earth.

Our rate of maturity is different

Even though our Craft Master is the same,

You see He works with what we give Him

Thank God in Jesus’s name.

Some vessels are broken and proud

While others are broken and humble

But brokenness is common to both

And as a result both are prone to stumble.

However, never let your brokenness

Stop you from worshipping God,

Making you feel unworthy to worship

Is another trick of the wily Fraud.

God treats us not according to our worth

For in ourselves we have none

But notwithstanding our brokenness

He sees us through His Son.

He looks not so much at what we are

But what in Christ we can be

And while I look on your brokenness

Christ in all of us is what God sees.

So the valued lesson for me today

Is that I am still a broken vessel

But one day God will perfect what He’s begun

And I will be perfectly special.

Stewart Russell (c) March 2019