Blessed, Broken, Given: How Your Story Becomes Sacred in the Hands of Jesus
By Glenn Packiam (Multnomah)
Throughout Scripture, bread is used to reveal God, especially in the life of Jesus. Jesus shows his glory and reveals his nature through the blessing, breaking and giving of bread.
In the same way, author Glenn Packiam writes, we are blessed, broken and given just like ordinary bread, and our lives can be used to show the glory of God to the world.
In Christ, we are blessed, and by his grace, we recover our true identity and purpose. We are loved, and we are sent to show this love.
The second section of the book deals with our brokenness. Packiam makes a helpful distinction between brokenness as failure, frailty and suffering. He paints a beautiful picture of our brokenness being the cracks and crevices where the grace of God can pour into our lives.
The final section is the call to give ourselves for one another and the world. We are blessed and broken in order to be given. God works through those who know the blessing of Jesus and have had their brokenness filled with his grace.
The book is strongest when it points us to the way we live these truths out as the church in the world. His chapter on living in this cultural moment is beautiful and a needed response to the never-ending culture war posture of so many in the evangelical world. This chapter is worth the price of the book.
God always is working in the mundane and ordinary moments of our lives. This book helps us see those moments as glorious and helps us find the fulfillment of our souls in being blessed, broken and given.
Zac Harrel, pastor
First Baptist Church, Gustine
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