A Person of Broken Heart
(Deuteronomy 8:2)

Objects become useless when broken. However, humans become useless if not broken. History tells us that great leaders are of broken hearts. On the contrary, self-centered and mean people whose hearts were not broken became disastrous to humankind. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Dojo…

1. People of broken hearts used by God
1) Abraham ? God broke his heart by giving him blessings and sufferings at the same time.
2) Jacob ? 20 years working as a farmhand, the wrestling by the Jabbok River
3) Joseph ? 10 years of slavery, 3 years of imprisonment
4) Moses ? 40 years spent in the desert

2. People of broken hearts and people of unbroken hearts
1) People of broken hearts - They take God as the master of their lives.
People of unbroken hearts - They believe they are the master of their lives and act selfishly.
2) People of broken hearts - They give thanks in all things.
People of unbroken hearts - They complain over all things and are resentful and negative.
3) People of broken hearts - They are gentle and modest.
People of unbroken hearts - They are evil, cold-hearted, and ferocious.
4) People of broken hearts - Understanding, sympathy, love, and patience
People of unbroken hearts - Stubbornness, heartlessness, hatred, and impatience
5) People of broken hearts - People of grace
People of unbroken hearts - Legalists, judgment, condemnation, and stripping someone off

3. Trials and sufferings to break a persons’ heart
1) Humans, who ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and became boastful of their being equal to God, realize that they are helpless, get down on their knees before God, become obedient, and God-centered once again.
2) When their hearts are broken, they do away with the tricks of the wicked, pride and arrogance, become gentle, obedient, and modest, and become a person of faith.
3) They repent of sins of living as the master of their own lives and take God as the lord of everything in the Universe including humans while relying on and being obedient to God and living by faith.

As a night and a day take turns to make a day, peace and trials come to us alternately so as to discipline us to become a proper person of God and be used by God. It is still the same today that people who are pleasing to God's eyes are those who are gentle, modest, and of broken hearts.