"My Face Is Red with Weeping"  

In Job 16.16 & 17 he cries out that even though his face is red with weeping and he has dark circles around his eyes, he still has not done violence and his prayer is pure. This  brokenness makes possible a ready reception for God's blessings.  

There is quite a difference in perspective between God needing me to have a spirit of brokenness, and God wanting to break my spirit. Job was asking why God wanted to break him down, a commonly asked question by those experiencing brokenness.

What we find as a theme in scripture is that God can use someone with a "broken and contrite heart." Jesus referred to the importance of being "broken" saying that if we don't fall on "the rock" and be broken the rock will fall on us and we'll be crushed.

Peter spoke of the necessity of "humbling (ourselves) before God so that in due time (we) can be exalted." Sometimes the processes of life bring us "humbling." For those moments to become spiritually beneficial, we must surrender our will to God.

To surrender is of necessity self-diminishing, whether the surrender is of man to God or troops to an enemy army. When the surrender is to God, we find the process spoken in scripture, "I must decrease that He might increase" beginning to take place in our lives.

Is surrender always tearful? Seems to be for me...I possibly have more difficulty with that 'self-diminishing' than some others might. I've always preferred the 'exalted' over the 'diminished.' Unfortunately, the order is 'diminished' first - 'exalted' later.

Even today I was caused to be reminded of that...don't you hate it when that happens? Remember, "humble yourself..." humble yourself. Repeat after me...