Shattered dreams

I have been home today reading through great stacks of books, doing research for one of my essays... the problem is that I get sidetracked, or skim them, or just don't get a chance to really get stuck into what I need to in order to get the heart of what I am trying to learn, or understand more. There are just too many good things to read and learn:)

Anyway, I have just skimmed through, what looks like an awesome book- one I would like to buy and read... sometime when I have more time! It's by Larry Crabb, and called Shattered Dreams, and looks at how God can take us through really challenging times to bring us to a new place. There are so many ways of looking at this topic of suffering, and many, many examples of how God deals with challenging times in the bible, yet all the time, maintaining that he loves us and loves to bless us, and be in close relationship with us.

He touches on a passege from Jeremiah that I just love. We have been talking about this concept recently at college, of digging our own wells, rather than going to the Well with Living Water that only Jesus can provide.

Jeremiah 2:13 says... 13 "My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Pretty powerful picture..

And he finishes, by saying... The journey to joy takes us through shattered dreams. That's the lesson of Naomi's story(the Book of Ruth).
A new way to live is available to us, a way that leads to a joy-filled encounter with Christ, to a life arousing community with others, and to a powerful transormation of our interior worlds that makes us more like Jesus.