Transforming Brokenness into Beauty: A Spiritual Perspective

Today, many people create God in their own image instead of being transformed into His image, which represents a new creation. This shift leads individuals to remain unchanged while trying to mold God to fit their views.

In the HHP Podcast, hosted by Chris Franke, the Senior Pastor of HFF Church in Oklahoma City, discussions center on the Bible, church, and family. Chris acknowledges that all humans make mistakes, impacting those around them. When people are hurt, they may isolate, retaliate, or begin healing. Although healing is desirable, societal pressures often keep people feeling broken.

Chris reflects on Kintsugi, a Japanese art form that repairs broken pottery with gold, symbolizing beauty in brokenness with God's help. Unlike the cultural focus on self, Chris suggests centering our lives on God. Key principles include prioritizing God, loving Him and others, avoiding lust, and surrounding oneself with godly people. The culture promotes one's love of self, leading to issues like loneliness and anxiety. True identity is meant to be found in Jesus, not in material achievements.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Today we live in a society where it is far more common to make God in our image than it is to be transformed into the image of God, the concept of new creation.
So rather than becoming a person who bears the image of the Creator, we knowingly and unknowingly stay the same person and attempt to make God in our image.

(00:24):
Welcome to the HHP Podcast. My name is Chris Franke and I am the Senior Pastor of HFF Church in Oklahoma City.
Join me and others from around the country as we talk all things Bible, church, and family.
We may be right, we may be heretical, but that's for you to decide.
Drop a like, a share, a comment, subscribe, and let's get to it.

(00:47):
Out of the gate, I want to acknowledge that humans mess up. This is a core truth of all humanity.
It doesn't matter whether you're religious, whether you're Christian, whether you're atheist, humanity messes up.
Sometimes we take things too far. Sometimes we don't take things far enough.
But when humans mess up, people get hurt. When people get hurt, they either isolate, retaliate, or start the process of healing.

(01:15):
Most of the time I'd like to think that we like to heal, but the reality is the propaganda of the world wants us to constantly stay broken.
There's a Japanese form of art called Kintsuki. Kintsuki is an art form where they repair broken pottery by mending areas of the broken object with a lacquer that is mixed with gold.

(01:38):
So a piece of pottery is no longer the same as it was before, but it was broken. But rather than being unusable, it becomes a beautiful piece that functions even with the cracks.
I learned about this art form many, many years ago. Instantly I thought of a spiritual connection that if God is the potter and we are the clay, he is the one who helps pick up our broken pieces and put ourselves back together.

(02:05):
The gold where the cracks are represent the pureness and the beauty of something that only God can do. Only he can repair us.
We aren't the same as if we were never broken, but the brokenness we become is a more beautiful form of art.
This is very contrary to our modern culture. Our culture promotes we're the center of all things. We should protect our space.

(02:29):
We should desire freedom, autonomy, and power away from others. We should focus on our ability to be successful and focus on our obtaining of those things.
Your faith is a part of what you do, but it isn't who you are. You seek attention, love, affirmation from friends, spouses, and other things to remain emotionally balanced.

(02:54):
But are you really emotionally balanced? And what do you do to help you obtain happiness? Well, it depends on how you define happiness.
These cultural tips, if you want to call them, have all produced humans that are self-centered, self-reliant, and self-absorbent.
The very thing that Jesus tells his apostles to war against. The very thing Jesus tells his apostles that the world will love but will hate them for not loving it.

(03:24):
In order to combat the lies of the culture, we must look at some of the biblical principles that God instructs us to walk in that will actually bring about healing, growth, and a life of abundance.
One, we have to center our thoughts and our hearts on God and God alone. We weigh all thoughts, decisions, actions, and responses to what happens in life through the Holy Spirit and through the word that God has given us as His instruction.

(03:55):
If God is the center of all things, God will be in all things. If you are the center of all things, you will be in all things.
Number two, love God first, then others. Your power, your freedom, your autonomy are not really your own. They were given to you to build His kingdom. That includes and requires that you help build up others.

(04:20):
Number three, avoid lust. Lust of pride, lust of desiring things that bring gratification to your flesh, your ego, and your mind. This world has an American dream. We should all grow up. We should obtain things. We should keep up with our neighbors.
And it's a constant rat race of a carrot dangled in front of us. A little secret, those things will never gratify or satisfy you. They're a drug. They're an addiction. And they'll only get worse as you get older if you continue to feed it.

(04:53):
Help fast from those things of this world. And that doesn't mean go off grid and completely like throw yourself in a hole. But don't allow those things to be the carrot in front of you that motivates you. Let the calling on your life from God do that.
Number four, immerse yourself with other godly people. None of the commandments in the scripture are given outside of the commandments for a community. The more you remain immersed with others, the less time you have to make yourself the center of all things. Your pride, your ego, all of those things.

(05:27):
And you quickly find out that most people are not really that different. You and they are broken people in need of a god to help put you back together. We cannot bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ if there is no one around us to walk with.
Recent studies link the increase of loneliness, depression, anxiety, and self-harm to the focus of self-idolatry. The use of that term like self-admiration and the excessive focus on oneself, even though they don't use self-idolatry as the definition, those are the definitions and the word that comes to light there. Self-idolatry. The use of self-admiration and excess focus on oneself.

(06:12):
But in the end, they're all the same. Your identity being wrapped up in anything you do, anything you see, anything you can obtain with your hands is missing the mark. Humanity's identity was always created and always supposed to be in Jesus.
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