On Leaning, Limping, and What It Really Means to Live Broken

Lean on Jesus.

I have heard this phrase many times. And for some reason the last time I heard it, I thought of why one might lean.

I remember spraining my ankle.

As I lay prostrate on the floor unsure of my ability to get off the ground, my husband gave me his hands and pulled me up. I put my arm around him. I leaned on him. And though I walked with a limp, I walked. (Well, at least until I got to my bed anyways. And then I pretty much let my husband wait on me.)

I think of the one man I know who walked with a limp.

Jacob—whose name means supplanter.

A supplanter is one who wants his own way and doesn’t trust anyone but his own self to make it happen. He pushes others out of the way. He is prideful, offensive, a liar, and a cheater.

There Jacob is on the eve of encountering his brother Esau… the one he supplanted. He must have trembled in his sandals as he got word that Esau’s band of 400 men were marching out to meet him in the morning. Jacob separated his belongings, he sent fine gifts, but he couldn’t stop the inevitability that he was about to come face to face with the person he wronged. He cried out to God to help him. He reminded God of His promises.

His last act before laying his head down to sleep: he sends everything he values most in life across the ford Jabbok. Jabbok means “emptying,” and I have a feeling as Jacob laid down that night unsure of the dawn, he felt emptied. Desperate. Afraid that he might lose everything. Wanting the control he’s always had that seems to elude him now.

God meets him there at that empty place.

Jacob and God incarnate wrestle—Jacob’s will versus God’s way.

Jacob fights just like he’s fought his whole life… like he fought for a birthright, like he fought for a wife, like he fought for sheep against Laban. He fights desperate, worried, and he does not give up. Just before the break of day, God reaches out and dislocates Jacob’s thigh.

You will limp now, but you may lean on Me.

God changes Jacob’s name from one who fights for his own way to Israel—God prevails.

Because even in our darkest times, when everything is out of control, when we fight and claw and grasp… God prevails.

My fingers run down that Genesis page touching truth so hard and so profound. God gave Jacob a limp. Because the only way to live like God prevails is to live broken.

I think of the way I have fought for my own way. Mydreams. My calling. I have been emptied. I have wrestled God, I have demanded blessings, I have been prideful and self-seeking. I have sought numbers and success and titles. I have bitterness in my heart towards those I see as more successful.  It’s ugly. I see it and it humbles me.

I am broken.

You may limp now, but you may lean on Me.

The only way to fully live is to live fully broken. The only way to walk the straight and narrow is with a limp—often slow and always leaning on Jesus.

There was a time when someone at church would make a statement like, “It’s all Jesus. Only because of Him. Lord knows, I can’t do any of it on my own.” I would cringe. How could it be all Jesus? You did it too. God might have opened doors, but you knocked and you walked through them. And now I get it. They didn’t walk, they limped.

I think of Paul’s “thorn in his flesh,” David’s adultery, Gideon’s timidity, Ruth’s Moabiteness, Peter’s quick-to-speak-and-slow-to-think, Jeremiah’s weeping… a Bible full of people who walked with a limp. People who were nothing but earth and clay. People who God chose to put His very power inside of. People who knew the only way to reveal the miracle of God’s Glorious Redemption in themselves was to live broken open. Dress up the vessel and one brings glory to oneself. Break open the pot and one reveals the surpassing love and mercy of Jesus Christ and the at-work power of the Holy Spirit.

I see the way I fall so short—as a wife, as a mom, as a child of God. I see the fears that I allow to consume me. I see the way I would much rather put on my mask than have to share my struggles.

You may limp now, but you may lean on Me.

This Sunday as I was standing in worship, asking God to heal me, to touch my brokenness, we began singing this chorus:

“The lost are found

The blind will see

The lame will walk

The dead will live

For You are God; Forever You will reign”

And just like that this broken, limping girl remembered… Jesus came to make me whole.The lame will walk. He is making me whole. Lean into Him.

I whisper it. Israel. God Prevails.

You may limp now, but you may lean on Me… and I. Will. Make. You. Whole.

Amen.

Here’s that awesome worship song by Hillsong United. It makes me weep everytime. God is good. The gospel is the best news in the whole wide world.

By Grace,

Amanda Conquers



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