Brokenness

I was listening to a James White internet podcast, and in an aside he mentioned that at an event some guys came up to him after he finished talking and told him he didn't seem to demonstrate 'brokenness.'

Pretty direct to say that to someone, but that aside, it is something I harp on regarding him and others like him, but I've never used that evocative word 'brokenness.' I usually use shallow, asleep, giggly, ha... (Here's how you'll know when James White begins to experience some true brokenness of spirit: he'll accept the Received Text. He'll recognize the word of God as something that is above him, and as something that he needs more than it needs him.)

Once I kept seeing a woman asking for money at a certain street corner, so one day I parked and walked up to her to give her ten dollars (she had a lot of people giving her money). She had a graceful, slim body, and shocked me when I saw her up close as having no teeth (probably meth). But in the quick exchange of money and words I got the quick impression that she was just as vain and shallow as any woman her age. Her condition, her state, hadn't 'broken' her in the way that the Bible speaks of. Psa 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Maybe she was putting up a front, but that too is exposing the lack of development that a truly broken spirit evinces.

It's a good word to use to describe that difficult-to-describe boundary between the shallow, vain world and separation unto the Kingdom of God.