Ever been broken? I have and it’s not a picnic. There’s no fried chicken made by grandma with that crunchy skin fried in chicken grease.  No red and white checkered tablecloth spread out beneath a big oak tree surrounded by green moss; no gentle summer breeze.

The picnic basket isn’t filled with yummy potato salad made with farm fresh eggs and garden potatoes. There’s no iced tea or lemonade and certainly no corn on the cob dripping in butter. When you picnic with the broken you are surrounded by ants, overgrown weeds and puddles of dirt.

You find yourself situated beneath a tree that gifts no shade from the elements and the surrounding pasture is landscaped with barbed wire. The aroma of cow manure is overwhelming. Yes, that is a picnic with the broken.

The contents inside a broken picnic basket

You won’t find a clean, crisp tablecloth to spread over green grass beneath shaded trees; the stains are unsightly.  The only chicken parts are the bones that have been discarded and tossed back in the bucket as useless.

The once fresh eggs in the potato salad have rotted and the stench leaves you holding your breath until able to inhale fresh air. The lemonade and iced tea are hotter than Hades and the corn has become nothing more than rotting hog feed.

A foul smell and barbed constraints block the view to the next picnic ground just over the horizon.

How God Packs a Picnic Basket for the Broken

Don’t lose hope! When we gift our life to God, He packs our picnic basket with the best of the best. Every stain on that tablecloth is washed clean, pressed and perfectly folded with creases that suggest you are more than special and deserve to sit in the shade in the presence of God.

The chicken isn’t just crispy; it’s extra crispy and falls from the bone in perfect harmony to His will for your life purpose. Those fresh eggs and potatoes are cooked and peeled to reveal our flawlessness as seen through the eyes of God’s grace.

The Holy Word of God becomes the liquid fluid that cools the soul and the backdrop of our prayers become master to the rising and setting of the sun God has ordained for us.

Today’s Prayer

God, pack my picnic basket with fresh, good things from your Word. Don’t let the enemy spoil those things you have planned for my life. Keep me focused on the contents you want me to pack in my picnic basket of life. I was once broken, but you have made all things new. Remind that I no longer need to pack a picnic basket for the broken.

AMEN