is God not GOOD?

"True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don't trust a man who hasn't suffered; I don't let a man get close to me who hasn't faced his wound. Think of the posers you know-are they the kind of man you would call at 2:00 A.M., when life is collapsing around you? Not me. I don't want cliche's; I want deep, soulful truth, and that only comes when a man has walked the road I've been talking about. As Frederick Buechner says,"

To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do-to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst-is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed.

(The Sacred Journey)

I don't really think I, or anyone else, can add to this.  Other than an AMEN.

Can you, can we, ask ourselves this question:  Do I steel myself against the harshness of reality so as not to be 'destroyed' and in such an act of self-preservation and pride, do I imprison my very spirit from being opened up and transformed?

WHAT are we so scared of all the time? 

Is God not GOOD?

Are we not called to be FREE?

I, too, don't trust a man (or woman) who hasn't suffered either. How could we trust them?  They haven't been to the depths and back up again.  They won't know a whole lot of compassion.  Of course, they mean well.  And they may say the right things and use encouraging truths because they're knowledgable about them, but they most likely won't have been held accountable to them, actually living it through.  And it's usually because they've simply chosen not to.  Their words aren't saturated with experience.  Being on the receiving end of such words doesn't do much for those who are in times of long-suffering.   No one wants trite phrases from someone who hasn't had to cling to Truth when all seems lost.  That person doesn't offer real Hope.  They only become a voice, reciting things they've heard and read. They aren't a living testament to God's grace and his faithfulness because they haven't had to rely on him all that much.

Their God isn't very big because they haven't needed him to be.

And dare I say, they haven't wanted him to be.

Because if God is that big, they can't control him.  And that's scary.

We can only be an offering to others when we choose to face the harder thing in our hearts- and all the junk we find there- and trust that our good God will pull us out on the other side.  Only then can we really bless others.  Only then can we live out our God given gifts.  Fully.  Only then can we be our truest self.  Only then can we experience how BIG God is, while learning about his nature, his character, and his heart for his children.

That experience is powerful.  It's priceless.  It changes things.  It heals.  It saves.
And there's no way of obtaining it unless we go through it.
But we have to allow it.   

If we haven't walked that road, we're missing out.  Big time.  No, it's not easy.  Yep, it's brutal.  But what did you expect it to be?  If we expected anything less from a God who let his own Son die and suffer (but then to be raised again in Glory!), then why on earth would he spare us?  If we don't believe in this God, then our God is merely made up of our own creation.  A man's imagined-God.  An idol.

He's Big.  Really big.  And he has his reasons.  He does not lead us to the dark places to then abandon us to our own devices.  He does not walk us through times of suffering because he "likes" it.  No, no .  He is after our heart.  Your heart.  He is after transformation.

He is committed to bringing alive His Nature within us.  But the self nature has to die first.

And that usually hurts.