An Excerpt from Mike Mason

Tuesday morning, July 29, 2008
Last night I began my third reading of Mike Mason's book, "The Gospel According to Job," and I must say that it is just as fresh and just as powerful as it was the first time I read it. I really wish I could get every believer to take the time to work through it, as it is jam-packed with truth.
Listen to this excerpt from the introduction: "A few years ago I went through a difficult time. Never mind what the problem was. It was nothing compared to the trials of Job. In fact, it was nothing at all compared to the sufferings of many of my neighbors right there on the quiet street where I lived, But pain is pain, and suffice it to say that my pain was enough to drive me to my knees, totally defeated, half-crazy at times, and crying out for relief. Month after month the battles raged on, think, dark, agonizing. I prayed, but somehow prayer did not "work." Usually nothing at all worked, except lying low and gritting my teeth until, for reasons entirely obscure to me, the straightjacket of oppression began to loosen a little—at least enough for me to get on with my life for another day or so before the screws tightened again. What else could I do? How was I to fight this? In retrospect I can see that a large part of my anguish was rooted in the fact that there really was nothing I could do to control what was happening to me. I was absolutely helpless, and it is this, perhaps, that is the soul of suffering, this terrifying impotence. It is a little taste of the final and most terrifying impotence of all, which is death. We Christians do not like to think about being absolutely helpless in the hands of our God" (p. x).
In this excerpt, Mason is saying very clearly what I was attempting to say in my last perspective: My problem is not that I do not trust God, but that I do trust Him to do (always!) exactly what He deems best (which usually involves far more pain that I care to endure!). To use Mason's words, I am seldom comfortable being absolutely helpless in the hands of God (neither are you, if you are honest). This is probably one of the reasons the gospel is so offensive, why Jesus was called (in Peter's first letter) a ROCK of OFFENSE! The fact is the gospel places us in what Mason describes as a place of "absolute helplessness in the hands of God!" In other words, whether or not we make it to Heaven depends upon God, not us, and THAT makes us nervous, so much so that we feel we must do SOMETHING to ensure our eternal destiny, to gain some kind of control over our perceived sense of helplessness.
To be sure, the most terrifying impotence of all is death, IF we trust God to do always what He deems best and our behavior is somewhat questionable and it is up to us to control our circumstances.
Blessings to you,

Mac