Broken Into Beautiful: A 3-Day DevotionalSample

Beautiful and Broken: Revealing True Beauty

Have you ever wondered how you can be God’s workmanship and a work in progress at the same time? A masterpiece and yet look like a poor copy of the original. We are created in His image and yet there are plenty of days, moments even, when we don’t even resemble Him.

It’s potentially because we have assumed that being His workmanship means flawless, perfect, beautiful. We have determined that unfinished is unattractive and that broken cannot be beautiful. In Scripture, however, the two are not mutually exclusive. It is possible, likely even, that broken, and beauty co-exist. It is seen throughout the Bible that humanity is both broken and beautiful, at the same time! What we have possibly misunderstood is what true beauty really is.

When Paul, in 2 Corinthians, begs God to remove the thorn from his side, to fix the broken, fleshy part of him, God instead, fixes something else… Paul’s perspective. God says to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Perfection, according to God, is a perfect God being seen in a broken vessel. Beauty, from God’s perspective is not an absence of brokenness, but a broken vessel surrendered to reveal beauty greater than its own. Brokenness in His hands reveal more beauty than any amount of perfecting or beautifying we could accomplish.

Maybe that is why God allowed Paul to keep his thorn and Jacob to carry a limp and even the resurrected Jesus to still bear His scars. It’s in brokenness that true beauty is revealed. The alabaster jar, only once broken open, fills the whole house with its beauty. The few fish and loaves, only once broken, are supernaturally able to feed the multitude.

We are truly beautiful when we reveal true beauty… His beauty, His glory, His grace, His power, His workmanship - not ours - and that is not separate from brokenness. In fact, it often goes hand in hand. So rather than trying so hard to fix our lives, our imperfections, our broken parts, we should fix our eyes on Him, so we can see true beauty, even whilst seeing brokenness. Fix our eyes on the eternal, on Jesus and allow Him to fix us. It’s not the image in the mirror that makes the changes, it’s the original.

As we fix our eyes on Him and surrender wholly to Him, including the broken parts, He transforms us. We are being transformed into His likeness with every increasing glory. We are both dirt and image bearers, holy temples and under construction, masterpieces and unfinished works. We are broken and beautiful.

What is one area of your life that is “under construction” right now? Could you look at it today, without judging it, or yourself? Would you surrender it to God and thank Him that His power is perfected in your weakness? Let’s fix our eyes on Him so that we can see each part of our life from His perspective and begin to grasp that beauty and broken can co-exist. That you, like everyone, are broken and beautiful.