broken tool – MikePeercy.com

There was a time when the word “change” made me reach into my pocket. Now it makes me hold on to my hat.

I’ve written about the craziness of the season of family life that we are in. Today is another one of those days of change amidst a season of change.

Our world-changers are returning today from almost a year spent in Honduras. That’s exciting…and difficult. But God is continuing to grow them and teach them and use them for His glory.

My one and only SweetPea is about to move from undergrad to grad school. It’s exciting, except for the loading stuff in a trailer and hauling it around part. But I’m dad and it’s what I do.

My Army man is in the process of being transformed from a boy to a soldier in one of the most intense seasons of change he will likely ever experience. All I can do is pray hard and write letters…both of which I am diligently doing.

I’ve had another anniversary and another birthday this month. I’ve been wrestling with the richness and majesty of our great salvation in my current theology class. I am in the process of being stretched in my ministry life in ways that I have never yet experienced.

Change is the one absolute constant condition in life right now. Continue reading Ch-ch-ch-changes…

I’ve been asked a couple of times recently about the name of this blog. Let me try to explain it.

In 2007 I left my last pastorate soon after a diagnosis of a severe depression. I spent several months working for a landscape company – digging in the dirt, playing with rocks, and other fun, sweaty labor. The owner of the company had a shovel with the tip broken off of it that puzzled me. He would go digging through a truck full of tools to find that broken one.

I finally asked him about it. He said, “Well, it’s like this: this particular shovel, even though there’s a chunk broken off of it, is the perfect tool for some situations.” He went on to explain that he didn’t have and had never seen a tool with which he could more effectively do what he could with that broken tool.

Over weeks and weeks of reflection and first-hand experience, I began to recognize that God has always used broken tools to do great work.

Recently a friend shared with me a story about a musician that had taken a box of broken violins and was making some amazing music. I want you to watch the video below, but as you do, put yourself in the place of one of those broken violins and imagine yourself in the hands of the greatest Maestro – the originator of music.

I have spent too much of my life thinking I was the one that should be making the music when, all along, He was simply wanting to make music through me – despite my brokenness and inadequacy and selfishness.

You may ask, “Why would God want to make music with broken instruments?”

It’s simple. It is so that anyone listening will know that it’s Him and not the instrument that gets the credit.

I’m a broken tool. So, if God uses me, you better know that it’s Him and not me.

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)

What about you?