An Excerpt from The Shack, by William Young, that rocked my world and is helping to shape the way I think about my past, present and future. I am learning to surrender with ruthless trust to Christ's hope for me. Thank you Lord!
Jesus chuckled. "Relax Mack; this is not a test, this is a conversation. You are exactly correct, by the way (humans were designed to live in the present). But now tell me, where do you spend most of your time in your mind, in your imagination - in the present, in the past or in the future."
Mack thought for a moment before answering. "I suppose I would have to say that I spend very little time in the present. For me, i spend a big piece in the past, but most of the rest of the time, I am trying to figure out the future."
"Not unlike most people. When I dwell with you, I do so in the present - I live in the present. Not the past, although much can be remembered and learned by looking back, but only for a visit, not an extended stay. And for sure, I do not dwell in the future you visualize or imagine. Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?"
Again Mack stopped and thought. it was true. he spent a lot of time worrying and fretting about the future, and in his imaginations it was usually pretty gloomy and depressing, if not outright horrible. And Jesus was also correct in saying that in Mack's imaginations about the future, God was always absent.
"Why do I do that?" asked Mack.
"It is your desperate attempt to get some control over something you can't. It is impossible for you to take power over the future because it isn't even real, nor will it ever be real. You try and play God, imagining the evil that you fear becoming reality, and then you try and make plans and contingencies to avoid what you fear," (pg. 177).
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
A Dream Not Come True
Pastor: God is good!
Congregation: All the time!
Pastor: And all the time!
Congregation: God is good!
I wonder if Abraham felt these words to be true as he walked his only son to be sacrificed (Genesis 22).
“How can God be good if he is asking for what is most valuable to me? How can God be good if he is taking away my dream that I have prayed most fervently for?”
I wonder if those were his questions as he spent, what he thought, were his final moments with his son. Though this is an extreme story and unacceptable in today’s world, it is a priceless picture of complete obedience and trust in the Lord.
I am a dreamer. There are times I wish I could live for at least 200 years so that I can fit everything into my “life plan” and still have the ability to move around as a 22 year old. I want to have at least five vocations, learn at least two languages, raise a family, see Jesus return:), etc. But, I recently experienced that there is nothing more discouraging than seeing one of my dreams die.
To have come so close to a dream’s fulfillment, in what seemed like the Lord’s perfect timing only for it to be ripped away like my skin from my flesh. So much a part of who I am was in that dream, but to see it die was devastating. Like a part of me was dying.
I think Jesus was a dream not come true for many Jews. For hundreds of years they fostered a heroic image given to them by prophets such as Isaiah. An idea of what the Messiah would look like developed, dreamt of, and fervently prayed for, I can only imagine how disappointed, maybe embarrassed they might have been. To be told the “Messiah was coming! Emmanuel coming down the road” and with eagerness they stretched their necks to look over the crowds to see their long awaited king riding on………. a donkey? Was this a joke, where was the white stallion? Maybe the non-believers laughed at the Jews for all their talk and years of fervent prayer. “You prayed all those years for this?!” Could they even have felt mocked by Jesus?
As I saw this dream of mine die, I did what I could to bring life back into it. “CPR” you might say, pushing in breaths and compressing and waiting for a sign of life, but still no pulse. The life I was giving it wasn’t enough. I got tired, there was no response, and eventually my arms turned to flubber and my strength left me. Through the pain of my dream dying I have felt Christ ask me something, “Do you love me even more than this dream that you have put so much of your identity in?” And the sad, honest, answer was “No.”
The joy we are able to have in Christ is that death has no victory over us. Though my dream has died Christ can raise it up when and if he’d like. But, if Christ’s breath is breathed into it that dream will not ever die. I can have more assurance in the dreams he makes happen than the ones I make happen.
I want and hope for Christ to breathe life into my dreams. But I know that they have to die to me so that they might really have the chance to be fully alive in Christ. I guess this is a way of dying to the flesh for me.
Brennan Manning says it perfectly:
“Search your heart for the Isaac in your life – name it and then place it on the altar as an offering to the Lord – and you will know the meaning of Abrahamic Trust,”
(Ruthless Trust, pg. 177).
I am looking for more of these dreams and even the things that make me hesitant to give up these dreams (pride, fear, anger, hurt) and I’m struggling to lay those on the altar, trusting that even if the knife does strike, the Lord will still provide. (Genesis 22:1-18).
Whom have I but you Lord? There is no one.
Congregation: All the time!
Pastor: And all the time!
Congregation: God is good!
I wonder if Abraham felt these words to be true as he walked his only son to be sacrificed (Genesis 22).
“How can God be good if he is asking for what is most valuable to me? How can God be good if he is taking away my dream that I have prayed most fervently for?”
I wonder if those were his questions as he spent, what he thought, were his final moments with his son. Though this is an extreme story and unacceptable in today’s world, it is a priceless picture of complete obedience and trust in the Lord.
I am a dreamer. There are times I wish I could live for at least 200 years so that I can fit everything into my “life plan” and still have the ability to move around as a 22 year old. I want to have at least five vocations, learn at least two languages, raise a family, see Jesus return:), etc. But, I recently experienced that there is nothing more discouraging than seeing one of my dreams die.
To have come so close to a dream’s fulfillment, in what seemed like the Lord’s perfect timing only for it to be ripped away like my skin from my flesh. So much a part of who I am was in that dream, but to see it die was devastating. Like a part of me was dying.
I think Jesus was a dream not come true for many Jews. For hundreds of years they fostered a heroic image given to them by prophets such as Isaiah. An idea of what the Messiah would look like developed, dreamt of, and fervently prayed for, I can only imagine how disappointed, maybe embarrassed they might have been. To be told the “Messiah was coming! Emmanuel coming down the road” and with eagerness they stretched their necks to look over the crowds to see their long awaited king riding on………. a donkey? Was this a joke, where was the white stallion? Maybe the non-believers laughed at the Jews for all their talk and years of fervent prayer. “You prayed all those years for this?!” Could they even have felt mocked by Jesus?
As I saw this dream of mine die, I did what I could to bring life back into it. “CPR” you might say, pushing in breaths and compressing and waiting for a sign of life, but still no pulse. The life I was giving it wasn’t enough. I got tired, there was no response, and eventually my arms turned to flubber and my strength left me. Through the pain of my dream dying I have felt Christ ask me something, “Do you love me even more than this dream that you have put so much of your identity in?” And the sad, honest, answer was “No.”
The joy we are able to have in Christ is that death has no victory over us. Though my dream has died Christ can raise it up when and if he’d like. But, if Christ’s breath is breathed into it that dream will not ever die. I can have more assurance in the dreams he makes happen than the ones I make happen.
I want and hope for Christ to breathe life into my dreams. But I know that they have to die to me so that they might really have the chance to be fully alive in Christ. I guess this is a way of dying to the flesh for me.
Brennan Manning says it perfectly:
“Search your heart for the Isaac in your life – name it and then place it on the altar as an offering to the Lord – and you will know the meaning of Abrahamic Trust,”
(Ruthless Trust, pg. 177).
I am looking for more of these dreams and even the things that make me hesitant to give up these dreams (pride, fear, anger, hurt) and I’m struggling to lay those on the altar, trusting that even if the knife does strike, the Lord will still provide. (Genesis 22:1-18).
Whom have I but you Lord? There is no one.
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