SusanMcKinnon

Last night I heard the voice of God… Yes, the very voice of God calling down from heaven… In His best Jack Nicholson saying, “You can’t handle the truth!” Then God laughed!

I’m glad God has a sense of humor. I’m glad He can even joke with us. We definitely humor Him at times (perhaps even more than we would like). I think He humors us as well.

The reality is that we can’t handle the truth! Ten of twelve spies couldn’t handle the truth about the size and strength of the enemy in the Promised Land. So they “ten-handedly” led an entire nation of people away from their destiny – away from their inheritance – and had them wandering around a desert until they had all died off. All but the two, that is!

God spoke to His children before they did finally enter the Promised Land and told them that He would not drive out the enemy all at once, “lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.” (Deuteronomy 7:22) Similarly, He doesn’t drive out our enemies all at once. If we were to see the size and strength of our enemy, perhaps we, too, would be unable to handle the truth. The wild “beasts of the field” would overtake us. So the enemy is revealed in bite-sized chunks to make it easier for us to gain the victory. With each battle, and with each victory, our faith grows. We get strength and wisdom for the next battle, and we move forward, taking ground bit by bit.

Yet there is another, perhaps ever greater, truth that we cannot handle. We cannot handle the truth about God’s promises for us and the life He has prepared for us! We cannot comprehend the measure of blessing He has in store for us! We cannot see the entire picture of our lives because it would be too great for us! No, we can’t handle the truth!

What we don’t understand is that God holds back for our benefit. If we saw the final prize, perhaps we would be too hasty to reach that prize withotu enjoying the journey. And to miss the journey would be to miss the destination!

Perhaps if we saw the entire picture of how God will work through us, we would allow pride to move in and grow in our hearts. The roots of that pride would choke out the very blessings we would have seen.

Our God is a big-picture God. He sees it all because, unlike us, He can handle the truth! We must be content with not seeing the big picture, but seeing only the portion that God wants to reveal to us at a given time. The tapestry will be woven together, and in the end, will provide us with a magnificent view of our lives. What we can do is handle the truth we’re given.

And besides that – what is that “truth” anyway? Jesus said that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (John 14:6) He is Truth! Instead of trying to figure out and understand this big picture that we so desperately want to see (the truth we can’t handle), why not just drop that losing cause and strive toward the Truth we can handle! This Truth will set us free!

Last night at class we discussed the way relationships are presented in the book. We compared those passages to various passages of scripture that talk about how Jesus came to do the will of the Father and Eph 5-6 where it talks about relationships between husbands/wives, parents/children, masters/slaves. In the end, we talked about being “imitators of God” and laying our lives down for each other.

Think about the relationships in your life. What are some practical things you can do, or areas that you can change, to make those relationships even better than where they are now? Can broken relationships be repaired? If so, how?

The Shack – Introduction

I am teaching a part-time Bible class on the popular novel, The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. My intent is to post a few comments at this site and then have the students be able to reply outside of class. It’s important to note that, while the class is about the book, it’s also about dealing with life issues and our perspective of God. We will use the Bible extensively to look at what it says about Who God is and how He deals with His people. So… let the fun begin!

For starters let’s look at the main character in the book, Mack. In the foreword of the book (p 12), we read, “He seems to have a love/hate relationship with religion, and maybe even with the God he suspects is brooding, distant, and aloof.” What are some of the reasons Mack might have this impression of God? How does this impression line up with your own impression of God?