We all know that life is not perfect and in fact, sometimes it just sucks. As Christians we're tought to believe that everything's alright when you have Jesus as your Lord and Savior. It is alright, but it doesn't always make this life here on earth wonderful. We lose loved ones through unexpected death, cancer and disease, husbands or wives leave one another, daughters or sons go off the deep end and are admitted into rehab, we lose jobs, and the list goes on. That abundant life that we hear about in the bible just doesn't seem to exist. Or does it?
In Shattered Dreams (based on the book of Ruth), Larry Crabb talks about the lessons he has learned:
Lesson 1 - Our fondest dreams for this life, the ones we naturally believe are essential to our happiness, must be fully abondoned if we are to know God well. Shattered dreams are necessary for spiritual growth.
Lesson 2 - Shattered dreams produce excruciating pain, sometimes so extreme that we fear we cannot survive. And that is true. The person we are before the pain cannot survive. We emerge from the experience of shattered dreams as changed people, but not always for the better.
The pain is not evidence of weak faith. It is evidence that we are normal.
It's part of a necessary process. The pain is necessary if we're to discover within us an appetite for better dreams that before we neither noticed nor appreciated.
Something wonderful survives everything terrible, and it surfaces most clearly when we hurt.
Lesson 3 - Some dreams important to us will shatter, and the realization that God could have fulfilled that dream pushes us into a terrible battle with Him.
Lesson 4 - Only an experience of deep pain develops our capacity for recognizing and enjoying true life.
Lesson 5 - Not many Christians drink deeply from the well of living water. As a result, our worship, our community, and our witness are weak.
Lesson 6 - The past is irreparable; the future is always available. In every case, when good dreams shatter, better ones are there to newly value and pursue.
These better dreams are indestructible; they will not be taken away from us either by God (because He is good) or by the forces of hell (because evil has no power to thwart God's highest purposes).
No matter what happens in life, a wonderful dream is available, always, that if pursued will generate an unfamiliar, radically new internal experience, That experience, strange at first, will eventually be recognized as joy.
Our ultimate hope is not in this life, but heaven and eternity with the one who suffered and died for us.
Stand by for more on "Shattered Dreams".
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Good reflections Jeri I have tons of books I am reading right now but once my list gets low I will check this book out.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I have an on-line business idea I want to share with you and see if that's something you might want to do while you're in-between jobs and waiting.
How are you doing Jeri? Been meaning to call you but I am bad at calling. Do you go to church Friday night or Sunday? what service? Maybe we can hook up after church to share my idea and see if that's something you'd like to do ...
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