ing Christian work. It is always self who gets
irritable and envious and resentful and critical and worried. It is
self who is hard and unyielding in its attitudes to others. It is
self who is shy and self-conscious and reserved. No wonder we need
breaking. As long as self is in control, God can do little with us,
for all the fruits of the Spirit (they are enumerated in Galatians
5), with which God longs to fill us, are the complete antithesis of
the hard, unbroken spirit within us and presupposes that it has been
crucified.

Being broken is both God's work and ours. He brings His pressure to
bear, but we have to make the choice. If we are really open to
conviction as we seek fellowship with God (and willingness for the
light is the prime condition of fellowship with God), God will show
us the expressions of this proud, hard self that cause Him pain. Then
it is, we can stiffen our necks and refuse to repent or we can bow
the head and say, "Yes, Lord." Brokenness in daily experience is
simply the response of humility to the conviction of God. And
inasmuch as this conviction is continuous, we shall need to be broken
continually. And this can be very costly, when we see all the
yielding of rights and selfish interests that this will involve, and
the confessions and restitutions that may be sometimes necessary.

For this reason, we are not likely to be broken except at the Cross
of Jesus. The willingness of Jesus to be broken for us is the
all-compelling motive in our being broken too. We see Him, Who is in
the form of God, counting not equality with God a prize to be grasped
at and hung on to, but letting it go for us and taking upon Him the
form of a Servant--God's Servant, man's Servant. We see Him willing
to have no rights of His own, no home of His own, no possessions of
His own, willing to let men revile Him and not revile again, willing
to let men tread on Him and not retaliate or defend Himself. Above
all, we see Him broken as He meekly goes to Calvary to become men's
scapegoat by bearing their sins in His own body on the Tree. In a
pathetic passage in a prophetic Psalm, He says, "I am a worm and no
man."[footnote2:Psalm 22: 6.] Those who have been in tropical lands
tell us that there is a big difference between a snake and a worm,
when you attempt to strike at them. The snake rears itself up and
hisses and tries to strike back--a true picture of self. But a worm
offers no resistance, it allows you to do what you