Sarah Nyhan

From Sojourner to me:

Looking forward to seeing you soon. What a God thing, eh?

From me to Sojourner:

I’m looking forward to seeing you soon also! I think it is a God thing also.

Can I be honest? These things Baxter and Paul are talking about in “The Shack Revisited” video series are really messing with what I’ve believed for most of my life. When they are saying what they are saying, it seems to make sense and even answer questions I’ve had my whole life. But it’s something I’ve never heard before. And it’s not little stuff in terms of doctrine. It’s the foundation; it’s everything.

So… Of course in my innocence I want to discuss it with those that I know, people that will usually talk about these kind of things with me. But the minute they hear anything different than what we’ve previously been taught, they completely shut me down without addressing the questions directly. And walk away from the conversation.

It’s disappointing. They aren’t being honest in their responses. For example, a preacher actually responded with something akin to “don’t trust people if they have to use charts to explain something”. I think that is a ridiculous reason to not consider an argument. I was really disappointed.

And then I told one of my best friends and she said something basically like “I’m fine where I am so I don’t need to know anything else”. And she was treating me differently. Almost like I’m now an apostate for even looking into this stuff.

All to say I have a heavy heart about this now. I feel like if I keep going down this path that a lot is going to change.  Now that I know, I have to give it an honest look. But it’s messing with my whole world right now.  Am I making any sense?

From Sojourner to me:

You are absolutely making “sense”. My experience has been much the same and drove me deeper into digging for the Truth.

I think you will find all that hear this have two choices: to listen to their logical mind and shut out anything that disrupts it or ask the Spirit to lead to the Truth.

Baxter will go over this, I am sure. Believe me, he too has had scrambled brain-itis.

God is love and perfect love casts at all fear.

What happened to me personally is my spirit “got it” way before my mind saw it coming. I dug into reading the Bible through the eyes of the early church fathers (Athanasius, Irenaus and others) and found this is what Jesus taught. 

The verse where Jesus told the Pharisees, “you search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness of ME.” (John 5:39) has taken on new meaning for me.

Some prefer to worship the Bible unknowingly and miss out on the Word behind it. Not saying the Bible is faulty, just that humans pick and choose verses to support what they need to believe and can miss the mystery of the Love behind the flat words on a page.

It works best when I don’t argue or explain. I try to just walk in the peace that God is revealing Himself and tells me to love.

Be sure and write down your questions for Baxter as he will want to address your concerns. By the way, his book “Patmos” deals with much of this. Ask anything you want.

Believe what the Spirit says. Learn to live in mystery… and joy. It IS a wild ride for sure.

From me to Sojourner:

A wild ride indeed! I was just thanking God the other day for this amazing adventure of a life. Thank you also for including me in all of this.