Strength for the Broken Places

STRENGTH FOR THE

BROKEN PLACES

"Strength for the Broken Places invites us to confront our vulnerabilities, wounds, and scars with the hope and courage born of divine grace. Jim Harnish takes us on a journey into our own brokenness and gently leads us toward a new future of transformation and wholeness made possible by God's grace. This is a book to read and share with others!"

—Kenneth L. Carder, Williams Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry, Duke Divinity School, and United Methodist bishop

James Harnish offers methods for identifying and dealing with our brokenness in a way that soothes the most difficult places while letting the reader in on the fact that these are common human experiences.

—Trudie Kibbe Reed, President, Bethune-Cookman University

Jim Harnish insightfully tackles those issues that confront us all: sin and suffering that cause, perpetuate, and intensify brokenness in our lives and in our world. Yet this is a profoundly hopeful book, offering strength and encouragement when and where we need it most. A great book to use in small groups.

—L. Gregory Jones, Dean, Duke Divinity School

Jim Harnish has written a book of incredible hope. This is a book that one will read with confession and gratitude for healing and then be compelled to share the message of living hope with others.

—H. Eddie Fox, World Director of Evangelism, World Methodist Council

Jim Harnish has written a book that addresses the brokenness that we all seem to be increasingly experiencing. Every time I turn around I am hearing about something tragic in another's life, and I devoured this book during one of those moments in my own. I came away from reading this book with hope.

—Nancy Rich, Duke Divinity School

Jim Harnish exposes all of us to the core of our being, uncovering every broken place we have worked hard to cover. Providing real examples of hurt, pain, and sin, he enables us to see the places of pain in our own lives—but he does not allow us to stay. Take out a journal and read along, bring to light the places of pain in your own life, and allow them to be healed.

—Donna Claycomb Sokol, Pastor, Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, Washington, DC

Strength for

the Broken

Places

James A. Harnish

Abingdon Press

Nashville

STRENGTH FOR THE BROKEN PLACES

Copyright © 2009 by Abingdon Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801, or e-mailed to permissions@abingdonpress.com.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Harnish, James A.

Strength for the broken places / James A. Harnish.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-687-65763-6 (binding pbk., trade pbk., adhesive-perfect: alk. paper) 1. Deadly sins. 2. Consolation. 3. Christian life—Methodist authors. I. Title.

BV4626.H36 2009

248.8'6—dc22

2009006737

All scripture quotations unless otherwise noted are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

Scripture quotations marked (NEB) are taken from The New English Bible. © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press 1961, 1970. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture quotations marked (RSV) are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked The Message are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked (JBP) are taken from The New Testament in Modern English, rev. ed., trans. J. B. Phillips (Macmillan Publishing). © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1959, 1960, 1972.

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 — 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The world breaks everyone

and afterward many are strong

at the broken places.

—Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Contents

Introduction

Scar Lover: The Signs of What We've Been Through

Sin: How Things Get Broken

Temptation: Where the Wild Things Are

Lust: Taming the Fatal Attraction

Greed and Envy: When Enough Isn't Enough

Sloth: To Care and Not to Care

Gluttony: Super-sized Sin

Anger: The Froggy Gremlin in All of Us

Pride: Let Your High Horse Die

Endurance: Strength for the Long Haul

Suffering: Making Sense of Suffering

Death: Light in the Darkest Place

Sorrow: A Broken Hallelujah

Hope: Turning Sorrow into Joy

Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion

Introduction

I'm broken. So are you. We're all broken people who live in a broken world. The critical question is how we find strength to put broken things back together again. Ernest Hemingway captured the reality of our brokenness and the hope of our healing in one of his most memorable sentences: The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places (A Farewell to Arms, Arrow, 2004, page 222).

This book is the invitation to touch the scars that mark the broken places in our lives just the way the Risen Christ invited a doubting disciple named Thomas to touch the nail scars in his hands. It is a challenge to explore some of the dark places in our human experience, to track down the sneaky culprit of temptation, to uncover the sinister power of sin, and to experience the way the grace of God, revealed at the cross, meets us in our broken places to bring new life through the power of the Resurrection.

With an opening like that, some readers might expect this book to be a dreary collection of sorrowful stories of broken hearts or shattered dreams. For others, it might conjure up images of judgmental preachers frothing at the mouth about the power of sin or of self-righteous prudes looking down their noses at fallen sinners.

Liza Hamilton was one of those people. John Steinbeck described her as a tight hard little woman humorless as a chicken.She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do (East of Eden, Penguin Books, 1981; page 10). I've known people like that, and they weren't all Presbyterians! My guess is that they are sincere in their desire to defeat the darkness and purge the world of sin, but I've never wanted to travel anywhere with them, least of all into the shadowy corners of my own soul. They aren't the kind of people with whom I would feel safe to reveal the broken places in my life.

Other readers may not be all that keen on seeing what lies beneath the carefully placed bandages that hide the scars of the past. We may be afraid of what we might find if we open the longlocked doors of broken hopes or disappointed dreams. Most of us have closets that contain skeletons we'd rather not disturb. We may not be ready to confront some newly raised Lazarus, dragging his grave clothes out of the tomb. (See John 11:43-44.)

My word of encouragement is that while this book begins in the darkness, it ends in the light. It's about the way the grace of God brings strength in our broken places. It's an invitation to experience the unexpected grace that meets us in the darkness with a light that can never be put out.

William Cowper (1731–1800) knew about broken places. For most of his life he suffered severe bouts of depression, in those days known as melancholia. He spent eighteen years in the parish at Olney, England, with John Newton, the poet-priest who wrote Amazing Grace. During those years, Cowper penned some of the most beautiful texts of British hymnody. In one of the most autobiographical, he described the light of God's grace breaking into the oppressive darkness in his life when he wrote

Sometimes a light surprises

The Christian while he sings;

It is the Lord, who rises

With healing in His wings:

When comforts are declining,

He grants the soul again

A season of clear shining,

To cheer it after rain.

(The Methodist Hymnal, Methodist Publishing House, 1964, no.231)

With confidence in the way the light of Christ is able to surprise us along the way, I invite you to explore some of the ways the world breaks all of us with the expectation that the surprising grace of God will give us new strength to confront the broken places in each of our lives.

To accomplish that goal, this book is biblical. This does not mean that it offers Bible verses as spiritual Band-Aids to cover over our wounds or that it prescribes biblical pills to explain away every pain. It means that I believe that when we enter deeply into the stories of scripture, we discover ways in which the Spirit of God meets us with sighs too deep for words (Romans 8:26), so that the written word becomes a living Word and God's presence becomes a means of grace in our experience.

It may come as a surprise to some readers to discover that the bulk of the Bible is not composed of theological doctrine, apologetic teaching, or practical principles for making life work a little better. Instead, most of the Bible is composed of stories: stories of the way God intersected with real human experience; stories of people like us; stories that invite our participation. And the story is often energized with song. Music flows through the stories like the songs in a Broadway musical. Miriam sings about God's deliverance through the Red Sea. Zechariah sings about the dawning of God's mercy in the birth of John. Mary sings about God's grace in the anticipation of the birth of Jesus. Angels sing to the shepherds the good news of Christ's birth. Paul and Silas sing their praises in prison. The hosts of heaven sing of the fulfillment of God's salvation in the Revelation.

The biblical message is carried by story and celebrated with song. So, my intent is to invite the reader to participate with me in listening to the story of scripture, so that through the written word, the Word made flesh will be made flesh in us. Because songs hold such a strong place in scripture and in my own spiritual journey, we'll include some of them along the way, too.

This book is also personal. Nothing connects with our lives as deeply as the story of the way particular people at a particular time found strength to face a particular broken place in their lives. All great works of literature, art, and drama are rooted in the story of the struggles and successes, joys and failures that are a part of the larger story of our common humanity.

One of the great stories of American history tracks the heroic pilgrimage of the Corps of Discovery to the Pacific Ocean under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. In his classic account of the expedition, Stephen E. Ambrose describes Lewis and Clark's ability to get more out of the men than the men ever thought they could give. Every time the Corps overcame what appeared to be an impossible obstacle, the men agreed that it had to be the worst, and that they could not possibly endure anything worse. Only to have it get worse. Sometimes our stories feel that way, too. But, Ambrose writes, "well-led men