The Shack

There are some topics/themes/subjects that are best dealt with through stories - because we need to be involved at the level of our emotions and feelings. Looking at academic arguments carefully laid out in essays, or even picking verses from the Bible, doesn't help us find answers to our deepest questions, because somewhere along the line the theory has to meet the experience - and the answers begin to come out of the wreckage of that collision!

Questions such as 'why does God allow suffering?', 'how can I forgive ...?', 'where is God in my pain?' can be relatively easy to answer in the classroom of a Bible college (especially if you have a background in philosophy as well as theology), but how do those answers prepare us to come face to face with the reality in our own lives and in the lives of those we love?

This is a book that begins to tackle some of these questions - but it does so in a way that won't leave you with answers in your head that you could put in an essay, but in a way that could potentially change your life.

I am aware that I do not want to give too much away - as it will spoil your enjoyment when you come to read the book, as I hope you will. So as far as outline I will give you no more than is written on the back cover. This book is about a father, Mack, whose youngest daughter, Missy, is abducted during a family holiday and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, and still struggling to come to terms with what happened, Mack receives a note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend.

Against his better judgement he arrives at the shack and walks back into his nightmare. What he finds there will change his world forever. And as you read about Mack's experience and what he found there in the Shack it may change your world forever too.

I found this a fascinating work of fiction, that raises questions, answers others, and has the potential to radically alter the way we think about God and ourselves. From a quick read on different Internet sites it is clearly a book that polarises opinion - from 'this book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good' to 'Heresy'.

I know there are some pastors who have told their congregations not to read this book and it won't take long to find online reviews that pull it to pieces, making the case that it undermines the Bible etc.

But I want to encourage you to read it, to enjoy it, to cry and be moved by it, to wrestle with the questions it raises, to disagree with some bits if you want, to skip over bits that blow your mind if you want, to read it again, to talk about it with your housegroup, to leave a comment below... and you never know - maybe you'll be a different person as a result.

Let me know what you think.

Remember the Vegetable Patch

Have you ever wondered why God allows certain things to happen? Or maybe instead of the 'why' question you wonder how people can believe in God when there is so much suffering in the world. Good things happen to bad people - bad things happen to good people.

This week we're looking at the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. A man sows good seed, but an enemy comes along and sows weeds, so that when the wheat starts to grow the man's servants notice the weeds. Realising that this is the work of an enemy the man does not get his servants to pull out the weeds - that runs the risk of damaging the wheat. Instead the field is left until the harvest. Then the weeds are pulled out and burned, leaving the wheat to be harvested.

In my front garden I grow a few flowers - marigolds and roses. Flowers are there to look nice. In my back garden I have vegetables (see earlier blogs). Vegetables are not there to look nice - they're there for the harvest, when they will be eaten. As Christians sometimes we think of our life as a flower garden - it should look nice now. But in reality our life is a vegetable patch. Our goal is the harvest.

Life is messy. We live in a world influenced by sin. People have free will, and some do whatever they want no matter who gets hurt in the process. But we have to believe in the bigger picture. The eternal picture. Maybe you're really struggling with something at the moment, wondering why and how God can allow this to be happening to you... There are no easy answers, no answers that make it any less painful ... but remember the vegetable patch! Ask God for the faith to keep on keeping on, to keep on believing, to keep on trusting, to persevere so that when the harvest comes you will 'shine like the sun'.

To listen to this message click here.

Tough Questions

This year our harvest appeal is once again going to support the work of BMS World Mission. BMS World Mission is the overseas mission branch of the Baptist church. To find out more about BMS click here. This year's appeal is called 'Higher Ground' and is going to support the work that BMS and local Christian organisations are doing in Indonesia following the tsunami of 2004 and the earthquakes of 2005. These groups are involved in reconstructing lives and communities as well as buildings and villages. To read more about the 'Higher Ground' appeal click here.

Natural disasters on such a massive scale always raise theological questions. 'Where was God?' 'Why did God allow it to happen?' I'm not sure that there are any really simple satisfactory theoretical answers to such huge questions that can be offered by those on the outside. Even to begin to find an answer requires a whole worldview - an understanding of the beginning and the end of all things, and then all that goes on in between.

I think that the most satisfactory answers come from those on the inside, who have experienced the turmoil first hand, who have struggled with the loss and the pain, and who have found that even in the darkness God was there. And whilst they may not have answers to their questions, their experience remains - God was there.

There is a sense in which each of us can only speak from our own experience. All I can offer is my experience. I know at the points in my life where things have been in turmoil, those points where life has hung in the balance, those times when I have asked 'why', there has been an overwhelming awareness of the presence of God and the peace that He promises.

But our experiences can encourage others for God is the same today, as He was yesterday, as He will be tomorrow. The Bible was written by ordinary people who God used. It relates their experiences and how they made sense of them. The Psalms provide responses to the highs and lows that life has to offer. Psalm 46 was written by someone who knew what it was like to experience turmoil and yet know that God is our refuge and help. How in the storms of life it is possible to 'Be still, and know that I am God'.

Share your experiences as an encouragement to others.

Testing Times

Those of you who have read my profile will know that I used to be a secondary school teacher, teaching maths and IT. Testing was a regular part of that life - for the pupils, not me. Why did I test? One reason was to focus the pupils to actually do some work and review and revise the material of the last few weeks and make sure they understood it and could apply it. When this is done enough something should begin to stick. [I am still surprised at some of things I can still remember from school, even from my least favourite subjects such as English lit.] Another reason for testing, particularly as the pupils got towards the top end of the school, was to prepare them for the GCSE or A level exams. It was my practice to make my tests harder than the 'real thing' so that the pupils would be fully prepared for those exams.

But there are few people who enjoy tests. This Sunday we're looking at Genesis 22, the passage where God tests Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his loved son Isaac. As I have been thinking about this subject there is a sense in which we are tested whenever God asks us to do something - will we obey or not? Ultimately this reveals the answer to the question, 'Do you truly love me more than these?' John 14 makes the link between love and obedience explicit: 'anyone who loves me will obey my teaching', (23) for example.

But why does God test us? Surely He knows the answer to those questions already, without the need to prove it. There are several answers to that question and we won't look at them all now. But here are two. You may have others that you want to add.

1) To encourage us! It is always an encouragement to pass a test. When we have come through a difficult situation our faith is strengthened and we are reminded again of the faithfulness of our God. Through the test we are often reminded of our reliance on God, our prayers are more urgent, and God proves again that He can be trusted.

2) To prepare us. God is not the only one who is going to test our faith. We have an enemy who will do that at every opportunity. Temptations will cross our path. We will find ourselves in situations where we ask, 'where is God in all this?' Think of the story of Job for example. The devil's charge against Job was that if all his worldly comforts were removed he would no longer acknowledge or worship God. But God doesn't want us to go into such a test unprepared. So He prepares us in advance so that we will stand through all such tests.

At school pupils endure tests because they have to. But those who go on into further education put themselves through the ordeal because they want to gain something - A levels, degree, other qualifications. As we go through tests in this life we endure the hardship because we know that the prize at the end is worth all the struggle now (e.g. Romans 8:18).

Grab a coffee and join in the conversation. Share your experiences. Ask your questions.

Listen to this message by Pastor Keith on 30 September 2007.

I'm not a surgeon - I just spend a lot of time in hospital!

Some of you may be wondering about the story behind the photo - well you'll have to continue wondering. I'm not a doctor and have no inclination to be one - an episode of Casualty a week is about as far as I go on that front. But my daughters are trying their best to ensure a better than average knowledge of the workings of paediatric intensive care departments within the best hospitals in the UK.

This last week we've been at the Royal Brompton for heart surgery on our youngest daughter who is only 11 weeks old. She is recovering extremely well, and we give God thanks. The doctors have commented on how well she is doing so soon after such a major operation. But then we should not be surprised because so many people have been praying for her and for us. We know of people in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America - and if you've been one of them 'Thank you so much!' But thankfully the answers to our prayers are not dependant on the numbers of people praying (just as they're not dependant on the length of our prayers etc.) but on the God to whom we pray. He is the Almighty One.

I guess many of us experience times in our lives when we ask the 'Why?' question of God. Certainly when our daughter was diagnosed we asked 'why?' We know that God is able to heal, so why have to go through an operation?

We praise God that our daughter is doing so well, but acknowledge that some of you may have prayed for family members who were ill and they died. And for you I guess the 'why?' question is that much more pressing and answers much harder to come by.

I have been reading the Old Testament book of Ruth this last week, especially chapter 1 where Naomi loses her husband, her sons don't produce grandchildren, and then her two sons die: leaving her with nothing in a foreign land. And yet her faith in the God who provides is so strong that Ruth wants to leave her home to commit herself to Naomi's God - to trust herself into His care and to trust Him for His provision. Which is remarkable when you consider Naomi's testimony to this point (famine, death and loss).

Someone has described life as a tapestry - with a beautiful picture being created on one side, but knots and tangled threads on the other. At times all we see is the underside, the back of the picture. Faith is not necessarily seeing the 'right' side. Faith is believing that there is a right side even though I can't see it.

No doubt Naomi asked the why question. But more of that another time...