The Dumbed-down Childhood Version - April 2, 2011

Good Saturday morning! I read a book again yesterday after many years. I say again because I remember some of the episodes from the first time, but this time the book had far more depth for me. I wonder if back then I didn't read the dumbed-down childhood version, perhaps even a comic book. Back in the day some novels or stories were made into comic books for kids since the big book was thought to be too much for us. In this case, 'they' were probably right. Of course there is always the possibility that I was the dumbed-down child version of me and that I simply didn't understand all of the pain and suffering written down in the dry words of the book. What impressed me the most is how the words of another book came alive to those people in the story in the midst of their suffering. The more they suffered and the longer the suffering went on the more God's presence and Word seemed to be new and immediate to them. Looking back over my life, I found the same thing. Suffering in a trial, though my trials have only slightly compared to those in the book, has brought the Word of God very close to my heart during the worst of the trial. Some of you may have guessed by now that the book is The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, a classic of Christian literature. In the story, a lot is left out that I now understand from my adult viewpoint. I appreciate that the writer used 'a curse' in place of writing out the actual words as many writers do today. I struggle with those words from my past enough without being reminded of every one of them in print. Also some of the specific violations of people, women in particular, that must have gone on were not graphically presented, again as many writers are fond of doing today. Our adult knowledge can be a burden in some cases. We can recall that life was simpler before we learned some of the things that make us adults. Most of those things are sin, but some like taxes and paying bills are simply part of this fallen and broken world system. Adult situations in a movie tend toward the sin, but we know quite a few adult situations that are not nearly so attractive. All of that adult knowledge, the sin and suffering, the paying and the sorrow, came from one disobedient act. Sometimes that just boggles the mind. Almost immediately that single act was followed by another, the woman's husband Adam, decided to hang with her instead of obeying God. The suffering we read about in the prison camps of World War II all comes from Adam and Eve disobeying one simple law. Amazing. What is even more amazing is that God decided, and indeed had already planned, a way to save us from this one seemingly small act. God sent his own Son to redeem us from the consequences of that rebellion of disobedience. All of the terrible, inhumane things we can read in a personal account like Corrie Ten Boom's came from the first act of disobedience, and all of the good deeds and miracles in that same account come from the one act of supreme obedience done by the Son on the cross at Calvary. Amazing! We love and follow an amazing God! Bucky