....of prisons and things
I need to say some things about what it is like to be in prison.... from personal experience.... since... I have been arrested... oh.... about a half dozen times, I guess... we all will get there ... some day... maybe you are already there... or if you have been around long enough (like somebody I know very well).... :) then you may have been there several times ... like me....
We each get placed in our personal prisons on that day when our world blows up .... that day when life as we know it.... simply... stops...
Yesterday I closed with a promise that I wanted to say some things about "the importance of prisons in the plan of God…… how we need to be arrested…. and placed in our prisons… and then … like it or not…the day will come when we will be."
We will ... because... we have been born into that world at war that I keep talking about.... we have this enemy who wants to destroy us... so things will not go according to our plan.... it is simply the way it is... simply life on the planet... things just do not go according to plan... doesn't even matter which plan... Philip had Plan A... then B ... then C... D... E.... and F... no one ever told me that this was normal... that each time I got arrested and put in the next prison... that it was not so much that the enemy had attacked me... to destroy me... to destroy my plans... my purposes... but rather it was God who allowed it to try to teach me to embrace His plans and His purposes... I could have saved a lot of pain and struggle ... if I had been able to see that.... like way back somewheres around maybe Plan C... or D...... :)
My prison wasn't a literal prison like Bonhoeffer's... but had the same effect... each new prison brought me to a place in God I had never experienced before... an incredible place... a place I never dreamed possible... not because God had changed my circumstances... or bailed me out of my mess... but rather that God had changed me in the prison process...
Life as Dietrich Bonhoeffer new it stopped on that fateful day in April 1943 ... there were a succession of Nazi prisons and concentration camps until his execution 2 years later. He had written things for many years before that... as a well known theologian.... but it was his letters from prison that were filled with more and more life... especially nearer the end... the closer he came to his death in 1945... the more powerful the things he was articulating... because his self life was being changed in to His self life... Bonhoeffer was completely changed during those 2 years.... saying things he would never have been able to say as a theologian.... if it hadn't gone the way it went... we would never have even heard of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer...
Our changes happen during our prison years.... it is part of His process.... never much fun.... but very necessary... it is where I die a little.... and He can begin to live a little... in me.... we need to be arrested... placed in prison... it is part of God's plan.... have you been to prison recently?
Can't hardly wait till my next arrest.
:)
We each get placed in our personal prisons on that day when our world blows up .... that day when life as we know it.... simply... stops...
Yesterday I closed with a promise that I wanted to say some things about "the importance of prisons in the plan of God…… how we need to be arrested…. and placed in our prisons… and then … like it or not…the day will come when we will be."
We will ... because... we have been born into that world at war that I keep talking about.... we have this enemy who wants to destroy us... so things will not go according to our plan.... it is simply the way it is... simply life on the planet... things just do not go according to plan... doesn't even matter which plan... Philip had Plan A... then B ... then C... D... E.... and F... no one ever told me that this was normal... that each time I got arrested and put in the next prison... that it was not so much that the enemy had attacked me... to destroy me... to destroy my plans... my purposes... but rather it was God who allowed it to try to teach me to embrace His plans and His purposes... I could have saved a lot of pain and struggle ... if I had been able to see that.... like way back somewheres around maybe Plan C... or D...... :)
My prison wasn't a literal prison like Bonhoeffer's... but had the same effect... each new prison brought me to a place in God I had never experienced before... an incredible place... a place I never dreamed possible... not because God had changed my circumstances... or bailed me out of my mess... but rather that God had changed me in the prison process...
Life as Dietrich Bonhoeffer new it stopped on that fateful day in April 1943 ... there were a succession of Nazi prisons and concentration camps until his execution 2 years later. He had written things for many years before that... as a well known theologian.... but it was his letters from prison that were filled with more and more life... especially nearer the end... the closer he came to his death in 1945... the more powerful the things he was articulating... because his self life was being changed in to His self life... Bonhoeffer was completely changed during those 2 years.... saying things he would never have been able to say as a theologian.... if it hadn't gone the way it went... we would never have even heard of the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer...
Our changes happen during our prison years.... it is part of His process.... never much fun.... but very necessary... it is where I die a little.... and He can begin to live a little... in me.... we need to be arrested... placed in prison... it is part of God's plan.... have you been to prison recently?
Can't hardly wait till my next arrest.
:)
