Songfacts®:

• Here, Matthew West offers a fresh take on how God is more than able to use our weaknesses for His glory. The singer penned the song in early 2017 in a cabin during a six week writing retreat. The cabin was built by country star Alan Jackson for his songwriting, but after he sold the property his friends let West use the property for his own composing.
• West explained the story behind the song to NewReleaseToday:
  
  "'Broken Things' was one of the early songs that I had written. I had an idea for the song a while back while I was working on the last album with the idea of 'use the broken.' The whole concept I was living with was that I tend to choose for God which parts of my life I want to be highlighted, like I was living my life as a Facebook profile. We pick our highlights, and we choose the best of us that we want the world to see. I have felt overwhelmingly time and time again, and seen it in other people's lives as well as my own, that God wants us to give Him the rest of ourselves as well.
  
  This song came from a very personal place, and this writing retreat came right after I finished writing a book. With the book, I was telling a lot of my story and it began to unlock things as I started to write songs for this album. With this song, it is a personal expression of my journey of faith. If I had to sum it up, I've never quite felt like I belong or that I'm good enough, but God is in the business of daily reminding us of what we see as worthless and turning it into something incredible that can change the world. In many ways, I'm the broken thing that I'm singing about in this song."