Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.

As a biblical counselor, I think a lot about sanctification. While few people with whom I interact lack knowledge about the saving work of Christ or their future home with the Lord, many wrestle with what happens in the interim. Using Humpty Dumpty as the illustration, they would agree that in Adam we have had a great fall and are in need of a savior. They also have a good basic understanding that at death we go to heaven, where there is no sin or death or crying, and everything will be set right. What happens in between their justification and their glorification is often a bit murky, as they look at the various pieces of their lives as a sinner and a sufferer, and they wonder how and when they will be put together again.

Despite being Christians, some see themselves as poor Humpty, laying on the ground with the king’s horses and the king’s men passing by, unable to put Humpty back together. For some, these fractured pieces might be their past—ways in which they sinned or were sinned against. They think that those pieces remain forever broken at the base of the wall of their lives. They wrongly view themselves as a “victim” or they speak of their “brokenness.” For others, these pieces might be their ongoing struggle with sin and their seeming lack of growth. They focus on their failures, forgetting that it is God who works in them both to will and to do (Phil. 2:13) and that he is faithful to complete the work that he begins (Phil. 1:6). Finally, these pieces might be a present paralysis based upon a future that seems fearful and uncertain to them.