To Voskamp's thousand

“You can’t handle the truth!”  That was Jack’s line, with the burning glare and that unrelenting arrogance.  Today I revise Jack’s words on account of something Ann Voskamp says.  In Chapter 1 of One Thousand Gifts, she talks about the sin of ingratitude.  God told Adam he was free to eat from any tree in the garden, except for one.  And Adam chose that one.  So we wonder, why did he allow himself to be lured to the forbidden?  With an abundance that pleased the eye and also the health of the body, why?  It’s like the time I had a shoulder ache.  The pain worsened and worsened and eventually preoccupied my every thought, and I pleaded for the Lord to take it away.  Then one day it was gone.  And with it also disappeared my fervency of prayer.  The Lord had illustrated for me how He brings good from bad and how without the bad pain, I wandered away.  Generally people don’t handle the good very well.  Jack would say, “You can’t handle the good!”  Our provisions are set, our worries should be none, yet we carelessly wander away from the Lord, so He sometimes allows a point of pain to re-center our need of Him.  Our eyes reopen to the realization of our nakedness, our insufficiency on our own, our personal lack.  Hence the importance to be thankful.  Let us not slide away.  May we not require the Lord to illustrate again with pain.  How many times do we relive the fall of Genesis 3?