My sacrifice to God, a broken spirit:
A broken and humbled heart,
You will not spurn, O God (Psalm 51:19).

This Lent, God wants us to break something. Unlike us, who break physical things out of anger or frustration or tactile incompetence, the Lord breaks something interior out of his mercy for us. He breaks what shuts him out; he destroys what hogs the foundation on which he intends to build. Our unbroken hearts stand in the way; our spirits, left intact and unshattered, bar the gates to the King’s entry. God’s “breaking our spirits” is an act of charity for us.

The English novelist Charlotte Brontë portrays this well through the lives of one of the characters in her novel Jane Eyre (a story I recently enjoyed and endeavor here to use and not to spoil). This character, while reflecting on past events, shows us how God’s “breaking us” is an act of charity:

You . . . think me an irreligious dog: but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong . . . the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued its course; . . . I was forced to pass through the valley of death. His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me forever. You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now . . .? I began to see . . . the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; to experience reconcilement to my Maker. I began sometimes to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very sincere (490–91).

God uses this character’s “doom” and suffering to break down the “stiff-necked rebellion”—pride—that prevents  “reconcilement” with the Lord.

Pride is the desire to be more than what we really are: to surpass the excellence that is proportionate to our nature. Pride lurks within us whenever we sin since, when we sin, we seek our own good without God’s law, without God’s power, without God’s mercy. We wish to do or be something without God, and this surpasses our power. For we are nothing without him. Accusing the Pharisees of pride, Christ admonished them for being closed to his mercy: “You search the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life through them; . . . But you do not want to come to me to have life” (John 5:39–40).

Pride, therefore, is the spirit or heart that God wishes to break, for pride is a wall that separates us from him. But we must caution ourselves: pride is not the desire for excellence itself, but the desire for excellence without God. Hence, if we break down our desire for excellence only to shrink from seeking excellence at all and without accepting God’s mercy, we have not obtained humility, but pusillanimity—“small souled-ness.” Not only is it harmful for us to pursue excellence without God, but it is also deadly to refuse to strive for the excellence that God desires us to have. God does desire our excellence; he desires our true excellence that he obtains for us through grace. He seeks to break down, not the desire for excellence, but the disproportion we set up between ourselves and him when we pursue excellence without grace.

This Lent, Christ seeks to demolish our desire to do without him. In its place, the Lord will infuse us with his own life: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20). Jesus asks to break down the spirit of pride so that his charity might flood into our souls. Then, together with this same character from Jane Eyre, we might reflect: “I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!” (492).

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Image: Rochester and Jane Eyre, by Frederick Walker (Wikimedia Commons)