The Gift of Disillusionment
The title is from a chapter title from Barbara Brown Taylor's book God in Pain. I picked the book up yesterday, and as usual, her words challenged and inspired me, so much so that I couldn't put the book down. Most of Taylor's books are edited versions of her sermons, and man...can this woman preach.
She begins her meditations on suffering (which is overall theme of the book) by looking at Christ through the eyes of John the Baptist as he sits in prison wondering whether or not all he's done to prepare the kingdom for the Christ has been in vain. Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another? Taylor sees the question as a moment of near despair for John the Baptist as nothing has turned out the way he thought it would. The Christ he was expecting was not the Christ he got.
Most of us could say the same thing. And Taylor points out that disillusionment is in fact, a good thing. The death of illusion is a painful event, but a necessary one if we are ever to discover the Christ in His own image, and not one of our own making. This morning, I am so grateful that God is patient as we descend through the various layers of our illusions, continually shedding one faulty image of God for the next, each time hoping and praying that we have finally found Who and What He is. And then, of course, the image fizzles, and the mystery of God becomes even more awesome, more unknowable, and paradoxically, more comforting, and more worth giving ourselves over to.
...it's the truth that sets us free...
7:58:27 AM
