"Shattered dreams open the door to better dreams, dreams that we do not properly value until the dreams that we improperly value are destroyed. Shattered dreams destroy false expectations, such as the "victorious" Christian life with no real struggle or failure. They help us discover true hope. We need the help of a shattered dream to put us in touch with what we most long for, to create a felt appetite for better dreams. And living for the better dreams generates a new, unfamiliar feeling that we eventually recognize as joy."
I just started reading one of my favorite books, Shattered Dreams, by Larry Crabb, again (for probably the third time.) Every time I read this book I learn something new, something more about God’s love for me. Here is a story that the author shares in the beginning of the book. It makes so much sense to me. I think it speaks a lot about God’s constant love and about our response. In the midst of devastating circumstances we can choose to worship God or attempt to do things on our own. This story reminds me that the first choice is always the greatest.
The man’s life was pleasant. So was his worship. The two always go together.
God was not pleased. So He allowed the man’s life to become unpleasant. The man responded at once with shock. “How can this be? How could this happen in my life?”
Beneath the shock, the man was smug. But he could not see it. He thought it was trust. “This will soon pass. God is faithful. Life will again be pleasant.” His worship remained shallow.
God was not pleased. So he allowed more unpleasant things to happen in the man’s life.
The man tried hard to handle his frustrations well, like someone who trusted God. “I will be patient,” he resolved.
But he didn’t notice that his efforts to be patient grew out of the conviction that a pleasant life was his due. He did not hear his own heart saying, “If I’m patient, God will make things pleasant again. That’s his job.”
His worship became a way to convince God to restore his pleasure.
God was not pleased. So He pulled back His hedge of protection around the man a little farther. The man’s life became miserable.
The man got angry. God seemed unmoved, indifferent, uncaring. Heaven’s door slammed shut. The man knew he could not pry it open.
He could think only of better days—not of better days coming, but of better days before, days that no longer were and that showed no signs of returning.
His highest dreams were a return to those days, to the pleasant life he once knew, when he felt what he had called joy.
He could not imagine a higher dream than going backward to what once was. But he knew life never moved backward. Adults never become children again. Old people never recover the energy of their most productive years.
So he lost hope. God had withdrawn His blessing, and there was no indication that He would change His mind.
The man fell into depression. His worship stopped.
God was not pleased. So He released forces of hell into the man’s life.
Temptations that formerly were manageable now became irresistible. The pain of living was so great that the pleasure of temptations afforded, relief really, seemed reasonable and necessary. But after the pleasure came a new kind of pain, a kind of pain that covered his soul with a fog that not even the brightest sun could penetrate.
The man could see only 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 addressed the only god he knew. He begged for help. Beneath his words of pleading he could almost hear what his heart was saying, “You owe me help. I will never believe I deserved all this to happen. This pain is not my fault. It’s yours.”
His worship had always taken the form of a demand, but now the demand was so obvious the man could almost recognize it.
God was not pleased. So He let the struggles continue. And God allowed new troubles to come into the man’s life.
In the part of the man’s heart that dreamed his greatest dreams, he had been certain he would never have to face these new troubles that were now in his life. For years he had said in his heart (without actually hearing it), “That could never happen to me. If it did, my life would be over. If that happened, I’d have no choice but to conclude that God isn’t good. I would have to dismiss God. And no one, not even God, could fault me.”
But still the man could not hear his heart speak. What he could hear was a seductive voice that made the worst temptation he had ever faced—to lose hope in God—seem noble, bravely defiant, the only way left for the man to find himself.
The battled waxed hot. But a flicker of hope remained. The man held on to his faith. Even as he did, he could not hear his heart saying, “I have every right to give up on my faith. But I’m choosing the truly noble way. I still believe in You. I still believe You’re there and that my highest hopes for joy—whatever hopes are left—lie with you. Does that impress you? If not, my God, what does?”
His worship was more desperate than ever. But it was still proud.
God was not pleased. So He allowed the man’s trials to continue and his pain to remain unabated. God kept His distance from the man. He provided no comfort, no tangible reason to hope. It was difficult for God not to make everything better in the man’s life. It was even more difficult for Him not to appear directly to the man and assure Him of His presence.
But He didn’t. God had a greater dream for the man than a return to a pleasant life. He wanted the man to find true joy. He longed to restore the man’s hope for what mattered most. But still the man did not know what that was.
The fog around the man’s soul thickened until he could feel it, like walls closing in. All that was left was mystery; there was fear certainly, even terror, but more acute was the sense of mystery, the mystery of a bad life and a good God.
Where was He? When the man became most aware of his need for God, God disappeared. It made no sense. Was God there or not? If He was, did He care? Or didn’t He?
The man could not give up on God. He remembered Jacob. So he began to fight. But he fought in the dark, a darkness so deep that he could no longer see his dreams of a pleasant life.
In deep darkness, you cannot see. But you can hear. He could hear for the first time what his heart was saying.
“Bless me!” he cried. From his deepest soul, he could hear words reflecting a resolve that would not let go of God.
“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 only to who You are.”
He still saw his pain. But now he saw God. And the cry for blessing was no longer a demand for a pleasant life. It was a cry for whatever God wanted to do, for whoever He was. The man felt something different. It was the beginning of humility. But the very fact of what it was kept him from seeing what it was.
The man had forgotten and discovered his desire for God. He did not find God right away, but he had hope, hope that he might experience what his soul most deeply longed for.
Then he saw it. Fresh water bubbled up from a spring in the desert of his soul, and he saw it. It was a new dream. He could see its contours take shape. It was a dream of actually knowing God and representing Him in an unpleasant world. The dream took on a specific focus; he could know God and represent God to others in a way that was his way and not someone else’s. It felt like coming home.
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.
A new thought occurred to him. “I will join with whatever forces are opposed to the root of this unpleasantness. I will ally with goodness against evil. I will not wait to see more clearly; what my hand finds to do, I will do. But I will stay close to the spring. My soul is thirsty. A pleasant life is not water for my soul; whatever comes from God—whoever is God--this is the only true water. And that is enough.
The man worshiped God, and God was pleased. So God kept the water bubbling up out of the spring in the man’s soul. When the man didn’t drink every morning from that spring or return every evening to drink again, his thirst became intolerable.
Some things in his life got better. Some things stayed the same. Some things got worse.
But the man was dreaming new dreams, greater than a pleasant life. And he found courage to pursue them. He was now a man with hope, and his hope brought joy.
God was very pleased. So was the man.
From the Book, Shattered Dreams, by Larry Crabb.
