Shabar for those with Christian Backgrounds

[Guest guest]

For Brothers and Sisters from Christian and other backgrounds, maybe

this can be of relevance too:

 

Excerpts from: http://www.amesefc.org/sermons/sr100100.html

Source: "Listening to God" Series #6

First EFC Ames

Sunday, October 1, 2000

Dr. David Staff

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Listening to God through Brokenness

How God speaks to us through suffering

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Brokenness – that time in a person's life when nothing seems to be

going right. More than that, it speaks of "hitting bottom," of a

time when all of our planned ways of handling things, when all of

our strength runs out, when the waves of hard things (external and

internal) keep crashing until, at last, there's no way we can take

it any more. It's a time when we finally admit we can't handle it,

we can't solve it, we can't manage it. It has us beat.

 

Old Testament Scripture passages use two words for it:

 

"Shabar" – describing the shattering of a clay pot (Jer 19:11), the

violent ripping apart of a man by a lion (1 King 13:26), the

rupturing of a heart (Ps 69:21), the breaking of a neck (1 Sam

4:18), the breaking apart and wrecking of a ship (1 Kings 22:49).

And "dacah" – the crushing to pieces of a man under physical

distress (Ps 38:9), the "pounding of the waves" on the shore during

a storm (Ps 93:3).

 

In short, there comes a defining time in every one of our lives

when we feel broken. Shattered. Almost beyond repair. With very

little hope, stunned and suffering, hurting.

 

Two very broken and spiritually wise people have said some

things that help us process the experience of brokenness. Joni

Eareckson Tada, whose ill-advised dive into the Chesapeake Bay broke

her neck and put her in a wheelchair for life, wrote:

 

Suffering has no meaning in itself. Left to its own, it is a

frustrating and bewildering burden. But given the context of

relationship, suffering suddenly has meaning.1

Suffering, brokenness only has meaning in the context of

relationship. It only has life if somehow and in some way God is in

it. Then, C.S. Lewis, who was broken through the painful death of

his wife, Joy, admitted

God whispers to us in our pleasures.

He speaks to us in our conscience

But he shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf

world.2

If these two trusted servants of God are correct – if suffering

and brokenness have no meaning outside the context of our

relationship with God, and if God shouts to us in our pains, in our

brokenness, then what is God shouting? Here is what Scripture

teaches:

******* The lesson of David *******

 

Source: "Listening to God" Series #6

First EFC Ames

Sunday, October 1, 2000

Dr. David Staff

http://www.amesefc.org/sermons/sr100100.html