Sermon excerpt, 9-07-08

One of the reasons I like the novel, The Shack, is that it’s so refreshingly honest about life’s struggle.  It also asks great questions.

In one chapter, Mack is on a stroll with Jesus.  They come to a lake, where Jesus asks Mack to join him on a walk across the water.  Mack isn’t so sure.  “Why is this so hard for me,” Mack asks Jesus.

“Tell me what you’re afraid of, Mack.”

“Well, let me see.  What am I afraid of?” began Mack.  “Well, I am afraid of looking like an idiot.  I am afraid that you are making fun of me and that I will sink like a rock….”

Jesus answers with another question.  “Do you think humans were designed to live in the present or the past or the future?”

Mack thinks it’s the present, so Jesus probes further, “Where do you spend most of your time in your mind, in your imagination, in the present, in the past, or in the future?”

Mack admits that he spends most of his time trying to figure out the future.  Jesus asks another question: “Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?”

It’s Mack’s turn to ask a question: “Why do I do that?”  Do you think I’m going to read you the whole book?  Use the book to ask profound questions.