Disbelieving For Joy

This seems like a nonsensical idea. But Os Guiness explains it in a beautiful and compelling way in chapter 9 of God in the Dark. The ninth entry is titled Scars From An Old Wound: Doubt from Hidden Conflict.

Man, I sound like a book report. Or a news story. For some reason, I had to find a way to shove as much information possible into the led or the first paragraph. Force of habit, I guess.

Well anyway, it was comforting and challenging to read this (like the entirety of this book). This is one of those books that you either read and change yourself accordingly or you read and completely deny that it has anything for you.

Here’s an excerpt that explains the disbelieving for joy idea:
“That was the moment when Jesus appeared [to his disciples after his death], and he caught them on the raw before the sedative of passing tim had dulled the pain. He stood before them, the sum of all they wanted. But for sheer joy of what it would mean in true, they refused to believe in case it might not be. What they were saying in their doubt is that it was too good to be true, and this way they adroitly protected the wound and refused to risk opening it. The one fact that they wanted became the one fact too much, so they disbelieved for joy.

“This doubt comes from the fear of being hurt where we have the scars from an old psychological wound. It is one to which many of us are prone. Are not most of us wounded at some point? Don’t we all have deep conflicts that are unresolved, perhaps unacknowledged? It is not necessarily that we have conflicts and scars that stand out publicly, livid and unhealed, but that even if our wounds are invisible, we know they are there, and we instinctively know the pain that pressure on them brings.”

This whole book is just what I need read during this time of life. I’m trying to recreate my faith or restructure it and adjust to all the things that have gone on over the last eight years. I think the book would be a polarizing force for anyone who reads it.

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On a much different note, I figured out how to rip off the Half Price Books chain. Read how on Son of A Beach.