The Shack....

I've been listening to author of the book "The Shack", Paul Young on It's a New Day T.V. show.

He was speaking tonight about mutual submission and how we are to be "mutually" submissive one to another. Lots of good stuff on that. Gave me a great deal to think on. He also spoke about how when we are in spiritual messes, we do everything we can possibly do, to NOT acknowledge God as wanting the best for us and we continue in our quest to move away from him, holding powerfully on to our sin, before Christ takes the final hold of it in his hand and takes it away. Only then, do we see our freedom in Him and are able to live in that freedom.

Yes, we do hang on to our sin. It's a comfort to us....we think. We can lean on it and hold it close and it kind of just smothers us into some type of delusional false security. That is how the evil one works. It is when we let go of everything that we falsely trusted in, that we find Christ and his comfort and his truth. Looking back on our lives, we wonder how we managed to hold it all together for so long....kept the lid on that box of lies and deceit and falsehoods. When one little corner of that box begins to open, we try our hardest to not let that happen. We know it will make our neat, deceitful lives fall apart and everything in that box, which we have kept secret for so long, will come spilling out. We will be revealed. Horror of horrors. But that is how we begin our journey to health. Letting all the stuff out of that box of misery we have held so close for so long.

Yes, health, spiritual and physical health can only come when we acknowledge our mess to a God who knows all about it anyway, when we confess it and repent of it by saying we are sorry for how we have offended others, then our misery box can be made into a lovely book case, something useful and beautiful.

Lent is a time of repentance and confession.....offered to us as a way to become whole again, as a way back to Christ.

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.