In the last post I discussed the first prayer that in my experience God always answers: Grow me. When we ask for God to grow us he is faithful and will place something in our path that we much choose to use for our growth.
The second prayer that God always answers is "Break me".
This is a dangerous and tough prayer to get past this lips. In my experience it comes with repentance or the need for repentance. When I have prayed break me it was because I had been building up a shell around myself which had hardened and was making me inflexible to the demands of the Spirit.
The biblical writers call this a hard heart. When the prophet Ezekiel was speaking to the nation of Israel about their sin he echoed God's heart to His people with these words:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:25-27 )
Cynicism about people, the trauma of life, disappointment, failed expectations, a rocky marriage, rebellious children, lust, dependence; these and much more cause our hearts to slowly turn hard as stone if we do not deal with the issues properly.
The prayer of break me is in line with the heart of God but it hurts when he brings the hammer down on it. Ezekiel promises the new heart and spirit but my experience is that it isn't a delicate surgery but God smashing through the hardness.
Often that which has made us hard has chained us down into negative patterns of life. It might be a failed relationship that causes us to keep all others at arms length or lust that keeps us chained to the computer screen. I believe God can simple wipe away these negative patterns and free us but this is the road less traveled. Rather, when He breaks away the stone He causes us to confront our sin, decisions and the patterns that occurred afterwards in order to grow us.
Afterwards we need to stay broken to be attentive to the Spirit of God afterall
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise. (Ps 51:17)
God answers this prayer because he wants to see us broken. Not broken as in disrepair but broken of hardness, because when we are broken we are truly fixed.