Dear friends,
In 2 Corinthians 12:9, we have God’s promise: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
On Sunday, we considered one way of thinking about this verse is through an illustration afforded to us by Kintsugi art. Kintsugi is an ancient Japanese art form that finds beauty in restoring broken pottery, glass, and dishware, not by hiding the cracks, but by highlighting them with gold. Restorations according to this method are fully functional, but also become prized pieces of art, each with golden veins running across the surface as in the photo below.
All of us have been created to be image-bearers of God, but God’s image in us has been shattered because of sin. God’s perfect glory and righteousness have been distorted in us, broken through our own sinfulness and damaged still further by the sins of others. God’s work of grace is to restore us, to make us more and more like His Son Jesus, who was and is the perfect image of His glory.
But consider the power and glory of God were most brilliantly displayed in Jesus as His broken body hung on the Cross under the weight of our sins. Consider, too, how the resurrected and ascended body of Jesus still bears the scars of His suffering on the Cross. But those scars are not defects; they are eternal tokens of God’s glory, power and love.
God promises His power is made perfect in our weakness. In another place, the Scriptures declare that where sin abounds, God’s grace abounds even more. We do not seek brokenness or weakness. We do not sin, so the grace of God might abound. In fact, Paul says “God forbid” to such thinking. But when God touches and restores the sinful and broken parts in His children, by grace the cracks become beautiful–tokens of His glory, power and love.
Take the ugly circumstances you have experienced, either at the hands of others or as the consequences of your own sin–any brokenness that seems beyond repair. Give them to the Lord and trust Him to restore you by His grace. Those broken sinful places are the very things that will highlight God’s power and glory in your life more than anything else. Through God’s all-sufficient grace, your cracks and weaknesses become the beautiful focal points of God’s glorious image restored in you.