Wreckage to Wonder

What would happen if we allowed our lives to be wrecked for God? That word- wreck- may disturb you. It may even strike fear into your heart. If it does it is only because you don’t fully understand what it means to be wrecked by God. Our basic understanding of wreckage on this earth is pure destruction. Something was whole. Something is ruined; rendered broken and useless. The end. That is what we know of earthly wreckage. That is what we understand from what we’ve seen of broken relationships, natural disasters and car accidents. Wreckage is bad and should be avoided. I would like to suggest that the opposite is true with God’s wreckage.

Look at the Bible. Look at the lives. God told Abraham to leave his home, his land, his friends: to ruin everything in his life and start over somewhere else. Joseph had plans of rising up in his father’s household and taking over the family lands. His brother’s sold him as a slave. His life was wrecked. Paul was held in the highest esteem among his peers. No one could outwit him or prove more knowledgeable when it came to the law of God. He encountered Jesus on the road one day and the encounter wrecked all the years of knowledge and experience he had built up for his own purposes. His skill was now useless for his plans.

These lives were undeniably wrecked. But it didn’t end there. There is another factor in God-wreckage that we may refuse to acknowledge because of our own fears. We see our worlds falling apart around us and look into the future imagining the worst. What we see- we think- is what we get. Ruin. The end. But what if while the pieces of our world were falling down around us like debris and ash, we looked into the future and saw the end that God-Wreckage brings: Wonder. Human wreckage and sin-destruction ends at the point of the breaking and ruin, but God turns wreckage to wonder. Abraham walked with God. Joseph ruled a nation. Paul wrote life-fueling words that would span through generations. Through the ash, through the tears, through the impossible thing that God has told you to fearlessly take ahold of, look ahead and believe for the wonder. It is there, waiting for you.