I have just read 2 incredible books over the last month and I’m going to start putting my notes into our blog here. The 2 books are Shattered Dreams and the 2nd, The Pressure’s Off, both books by Larry Crabb.

The first book I will cover is Shattered Dreams. I believe the title of the book can catch most people, since I believe we all have had a few of what we `consider our God dreams shattered. He reallly goes into why this must happen.

He starts out the book with a parable. I will paraphrase it…

Starts out with a man who’s life and worship was pleasant. But God wasn’t pleased so He allowed the mans life to become unpleasant.

Basically his life was going to heck in a handbasket.

A few lines from the book..

“The man could only see his pain. He could not see God. He thought he could, but the god he saw was one whose job it was to relieve pain. He could imagine this god, but he could not find him.”

He begged, pleaded and worshiped more desparate than ever, but it was still pride getting in the way.

God was still not pleased and continued to allow the mans trial to remain. It wasn’t that God was wanting to help him, God had a greater dream for the man than a return to a pleasant life. He wanted the man to find true joy and true peace.

The parable ends with the man saying, “Bless me! Not because I am good, but because You are good. Bless me! NOt because I deserve Your blessing, but because it is Your nature to bless. You really can’t help Yourself. I appeal not to who I am. You owe me nothing. I appeal to who You are.”

The pain was still there but more importantly, he’s seeing God. And the cry was no longer for a pleasant life, it was for whatever God wanted to do. This was the beginning of humility. He forgot himself and discovered his desire for God.

Though he didn’t find God right away and was still dealing with the trials and the pain that goes with it, he now had hope, the hope what deep in his soul had really longed for.

Then he had what I call the HA-ha moment. It was a new dream that was springing forth. It was a dream of actually knowing God and representing Him in an unpleasant world. He started to see how he could know God in an intimate way and represent God to others in a way that was his way and not someone else’s.

NOw I want quote 2 paragraphs I found powerful…

“He realized immediately that his power to speak on behalf of God to others in the midst of their unpleasant lives depended on his speaking from the midst of his own unpleasantness. he had never before felt grateful for his troubles.

His suffering became to him a doorway into God’s heart. He shared God’s pain in His great project of redemption. Suffering together for a single cause made him feel closer to God.”

How many times have we had some great pain, maybe from a divorce, financial problems, etc…that God brings someone into our lives that has gone through what we have and we then can minister more effectively to them.

In my BC days, I was into the party lifestyle so its easier for me to actually talk with others that are into partying as someone who never really was into that lifestyle. It’s difficult for them to understand what really is deep inside their soul, why they to do the things they do, while for me, I understand. I can relate and share my testimony to them because they understand at one point, I was just like them.

The parable ends with saying some things in the mans life got better, , some stayed the same and some things got worse.

But the man was dreaming new dreams, he was now a man with hope and his his hope brought joy.

I do the first chapter tomorrow. But you can see where the book is going. So many times we let our God dreams get in the way of what really should matter most. I know I have done that for most of my Christian life. But I always struggled with… how do I get to that point.

Thoughts, comments, feel free to leave.

God bless

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