From my Journal: December of 1971
“I’VE LOST ALL HOPE. I’VE TRIED TO FIX MYSELF, MY MATE, MY CHILDREN AND MY FRIENDS. IT’S JUST NOT WORKING…WHAT DO I DO NOW?”
I was ready to leave my marriage, family, and ministry. The week I was planning on “resigning,” a friend encouraged me to try again, and this time to let the Lord fix my broken heart and broken family.
How did we become broken?
I want to assure you that I never got up one morning and thought to myself, “I think I’ll be a lousy dad and husband today,” but so often I was. Sometimes I had my eyes on the problems within me, or the ones surrounding me, and I fell into deep depression. Sometimes I had my eyes on my own battles and I forgot the battles my loved ones were fighting. Sometimes Bobbi and I were struggling in marriage, and we didn’t have any answers for ourselves or anyone else. Sometimes we were struggling with our jobs, finances, or health. Sometimes it was the rebellion of one (or more) of the kids that sunk us into a crushing despair. For all our efforts, we were a mess.
When my plans failed, I started looking for “Plan B.”
As I look back, what our broken family needed was a change in ownership and management. The physical dad and mom in our family needed their heavenly Father to come into their broken lives and rebuild their hearts. We needed Him to make our house into a home so that when our prodigal children quit running, there would be a real home for them to come home to!
Down through my life, I’ve looked at other people’s lives, homes, or ministries and thought, “Look at them, they have all the right training and gifts, but no one is following them!” In the middle of our “broken family period,” I took a look in the mirror at myself. I saw one of those “husbands,” “dads,” and “leaders” looking back at me. I had all the right qualifications for being a husband, dad, and a minister, and yet when all the individual parts of my life were packaged into me, I failed to have the one qualification for leadership:
NO ONE WAS FOLLOWING ME!
I was giving my family good orders. I was reading good books. As a minister I was preaching good sermons (unless you didn’t like the people I was “borrowing” them from). I had good plans that worked for other successful people, parents, or ministers. But my home and church seemed, to me, to be just buildings full of empty people. I came to realize that the people in my life were listening to my words but they were not following my steps. Even worse than that, my own children were not following me.
In my harassed and helpless condition I started looking for someone else to blame. I thought, “It must be my family’s fault—or the church’s! I’ll change them.” In my desperate search, I decided that if I could just find the right book or the right counselor then I would know how to be a better husband, dad, and friend. I reasoned, “If I could only get my prodigal children to a counselor, we could be a happy family!” I lamented, “If I had only been older when we had children” and “If only my wife were able to stay home with the children instead of working outside of the home, we wouldn’t be in this mess!” I tortured myself, “If only I could afford to keep the children in Christian school!” If only…If only…If only…. The “if only’s” were killing me!
I NEEDED TO START CHANGING THE ONLY ONE I COULD MAKE DECISIONS FOR…ME!
I finally came to understand that I needed God to take me, a broken down poor excuse for a husband, dad and minister, and allow Him to change my life—to make me into a miracle. After all, I knew in my head that parents who can’t even read or do not know any counselors, can raise godly, well-adjusted children. Families with young parents often raise great kids. Single-parent homes, broken from divorce, have produced Christian kids. Parents who raise their children in public schools can still raise wonderful godly children. Even families where neither of the parents are a Christian often produce godly children!
I remember my brother in-law saying, “There’s nothing wrong with your children that getting yourself under control wouldn’t help.” OUCH! But it was true; I needed to start working on the only one I could really make decisions for, instead of trying to change everyone else in my world. I needed to let the Lord be the head of our home and my wife and I partner in raising our children. It was after that decision to surrender my life that, in spite of the crisis in my home, people started really listening to my sermons and following my example. They didn’t follow me because I was right. They followed me because they could see God at work in my life!
How are things at your house?
Have your plans failed? Have you exhausted yourself by trying to find solutions? Are you convinced anything short of a miracle won’t be enough?
I NEEDED A MIRACLE AND NOTHING LESS!
I don’t know how it is in your life, but sometimes I ‘m not experiencing joy or satisfaction in my Christian walk but there are other times, though, when my heart is ready, and the Scriptures transform my mind and life.
I remember reading Luke 4:18-20. Jesus entered the temple, picked up the Scriptures, and read from Isaiah where it says, “He (Jesus) closed the book and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him. And he began to say to them, ‘TODAY THIS SCRIPTURE HAS BEEN FULFILLED IN YOUR HEARING.’”
I was intrigued and wanted to know more about what He said that was being fulfilled, so I looked at Isaiah 61. Here is the full text of what Jesus was saying:
– “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who are grieving in Zion, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations…. 6) And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God!”
When I read the above passage I suddenly realized that He was not only making this statement to the people then, but to me and my family now! Think of it…Jesus said to those people, “This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing!” As I read those promises I asked the Lord to make me a miracle, and as He began to change me, it gave me growing confidence that He could change my marriage, my family, and my world.
As He began to change me, I discovered that HE CAN bring good news!
- HE CAN bind up the broken hearted!
- HE CAN set the captive free (He’s setting my filthy life and mind free!)
- HE CAN make this a favorable year!
- HE CAN bring comfort to my grieving heart!
- HE CAN fill my heart with joy and my mouth with praise!
- HE CAN rebuild the ruins of my life!
There is encouragement in what He did in the past, but there is outrageous joy and confidence in knowing He’s still keeping His word and making a miracle out of me! HE CAN, HE COULD, HE WOULD, AND HE DID! I can become joy-filled and contented! I can be married to a joy-filled, secure wife! We can see God reach out to reclaim each of our family, ONE PERSON AT A TIME!
A new start.
I can tell you the day that I finally understood and let the Lord continue the work in my life He had started several years before…the work He promises to finish! It was December 11, 1971. The Lord gave me back my hope, and on that night I wrote:
HE’S STILL WORKING ON ME The great God of heaven, began to paint one day And with a brush and canvas, with paints from red to gray, With strokes as bold as thunder, as lightening it did glow, It was the life of a child and it started white as snow. The picture looked majestic in the image of God’s Son, And the artist smiled with pleasure for soon He’d have it done. But the picture was not finished when tragedy struck one day, For from the hands of the Master, the brush was snatched away. Yes, God, He had been painting on a canvas not yet done, A picture filled with joy and peace in the image of His Son, But when I sinned I took away the brush from God’s own hand, And tried to paint my own picture, but friend, please understand, The picture turned from beauty, to pain and cold despair, I painted then with guilt and hate, until only black was there. But then one day I came to know that with mighty strokes of red, My God could take my strokes away, and place His there instead. Now once again, He has the brush, and although He’s still not done, My life’s becoming now conformed, to the Image of His Son.
Bill Putman, December 11, 1971
If nothing short of a miracle will do, I suggest you take your broken heart and dreams to the Lord and let Him begin to make a miracle of you. Now there’s hope!!
PS: Who’s painting your picture?