Shaken, Not Stirred
I was once in a bible class where we had a guest teacher for the day. The first thing he had us do was to write the word “theology” as big as we could across of piece of paper. Then he had us throw all of our papers into the middle of the room. He said, “Good, now that we have all or theologies out of the way, we can get to learning about God.” He then went on to antagonize us with questions we couldn’t answer. He said they were easy questions and shouldn’t we know the answer since we’re in bible school?
For his final illustration he grabbed a water bottle. “Anyone know what’s inside here?”
“Water?” a faint voice from the back of the room called out.
“OK, well how do you know it’s water?”
“I’m just assuming it’s water since it’s a water bottle.” She said with a little bit of twang already perturbed from his day’s lesson.
“So you don’t actually know what’s inside then, right? You’re just assuming it’s water because of its packaging.”
“Ya, I guess. I think it’s the most logical probability.”
“Ok everyone. Let’s go outside.”
He had the student he was questioning grab the water bottle and open the lid.
“Here’s what I want you to do: give it a few good shakes with the lid off, but shake it away from yourself, don’t get it on you.”
The student did what he said, shook a few good times and its contents went flying all over the floor. Then we smelled it – white vinegar.
“See people, you don’t really know what’s inside someone until they get shaken up a little. I came in today not to teach you about theology or to give you more biblical knowledge; I wanted to see what was inside you. So I shook you up a little, maybe I even pushed you a little and I got to see what came out of you.”
I think God often puts us in situations to let us see what’s inside of us, like when he led the Israelites to Marah and they jumped in and tasted the bitter waters. Can you remember the last time you were shaken up? What came out of you?
Remember when God led Israel through the wilderness, out of slavery, out of bondage from Egypt and all they could do was to think of the food they used to eat, how “good” it used to be?
Don’t be fooled by your anger; it’s bondage; it will suck any patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, gentleness – in essence – God’s love from your soul. It will compete on every level for control of your life.
Have you been shaken up lately? Start by attacking the problem, not the person. Why is it you were so offended? What important rule was violated? Speak the truth in love. Anger is directional; if it’s not addressed it eventually turns itself on you, so it must be dealt with. God has set us free from the bondage of sin, so why make yourself a slave to it again?
Justin Halbert
JT_Halbert80@yahoo.com