You are considered blessed by God (spiritually, not physically or circumstantially) when your spirit is broken and you are poor.
When you are emptied, when you are done, when you are beyond bleeding.
When there is no pulse. When there is no heartbeat.
When you are dead.
This is when you are blessed by God.
7 comments:
Can I forward this to TBN and see if the Crouch's will announce it?
I hear ya brother....
you bet, man.
I'll be on pins and needles waiting to hear it...
Dude, I am seriously blessed. I never realised what a deplorable human being I am. Isn't that so cool. To me, (I grew up Catholic) there always was a hierarchy of sins. There's cardinal sins and venial sins. There's the "you are going straight to hell do not pass go or collect $200" sin and "the little white" sins. God really has blown that out of the water for me lately. All sin is the same. It's evil and separates us from the glory of God. All of it. There are no 'Little sins." I moved to the hood right. We decided that I was staying home with the kids and my husband was going into ministry...because we just like having no money. But I have to tell the truth. I feel a little embarassed about where we live and I really would like a Mcmansion and a Lincoln Navigator. That's not a little white sin. That's bad. I obey a call on my life but then I whine about it to him all the time. Because of my greed, I fail to recognize how blessed I am to be with my kids all the time. I am such a spoiled little brat and I am coming to see that I am really "dead." So I must be blessed. Hey man, if this is where I end and he begins, good! Because I was sick of me anyway.
bb, you are such a breath of fresh air here.
Your blunt honesty, the things you are uncertain about, the things you are certain about...wow.
I've heard some interesting things in the last year and a half about who/what we are.
On one hand, I've heard followers of Jesus referred to as "snow covered dung".
I've also talked with followers who embrace something differently, that when our spirit is reborn we have a new heart from God, and it's just a matter of letting that heart emerge above all the junk and lies we are so used to living.
I see both of these in your writing. You talk of being snow covered dung, which is so honest compared to so many Churchians.
And yet in your writing is a visibly deep hunger and passion to live according to the spirit you received at the death of your spirit and the rebirth of the new one God gave you.
I'm not trying to be wordy or cliche-ish in this description, and maybe I'm doing a terrible job with it.
I just see something beautiful in your expressions, the blunt and untamed honesty.
That's awesome.
I'm almost getting sort of honest...believe me there is still plenty of bullshit...I'm so good at bullshit that sometimes it looks so mch like honesty that I buy it. I have to be very careful about elitism because I'm a snob. I want to beleive I'm better than those christians who would never deign to utter the word bullshit. I want to beleive I am more real...but that makes me even worse than them because I think I'm better than them for thinking they are better than me. If I have not love I am....
I don't want to be better than those "other churchians" anymore. I'm sick of doing that. That's just me being pissed off because I found out that the humans are human. They didn't ask to be and they really do think that's what God wants. Who am I to fault them for being lost...I don't have it figured out nor do I own the exclusive rights to the truth. I'm just snow covered dung right.
I don't want to be better than anyone else but me. I want to find a way to love the thing that peirced me...then I belong to God. Otherwise I am just another wannabe intellectual snob who sold my birthright for a bowl of stew.
I look at it not in terms of better/worse people, but a better/worse way of living.
I don't think it comes across very well in my blog, cause I tend to simply type my thoughts and it's usually jumbled and/or drifiting.
Either way, I have really been digging the book of John for some time now.
I find it fascinating to see what and how John describes what he does of Jesus' life.
Jesus is quite abrasive in John. He calls out his disciples' mental density quite a bit. He wonders out loud "how much longer must I put up with you?!?"
There's quite a bit of "when are you going to GET it?!?" in that book.
Also in John, Jesus is very rude (by American standards) to a lady in desperate need. He does bring it full circle, but many "Christians" should be appalled at Jesus' actions. They're unChristian to this lady! (heh heh)
And, of course, Jesus calls out the pretenders. The actors, the bullshitters. Calls them out and shreds them.
I thought recently: "the American Body has it totally backwards. Jesus scalds the teachers of the Law and befriends sinners. In America, Christians scald sinners and befriend teachers of God's laws (principles)."
And so when my heart roars and screams from hearing Betty or Bob Blessing speak their hollow crap, which is based imo on one of many fake Gospels, there is no "nice" about it.
If they are going to proclaim they know God, then they should know better. They should not wear God's name lightly if they are not going to get their counsel from Him.
It has nothing to do with being any 'better' than Bob or Betty Blessing. It's saying "hey Bob, Betty--would you please tell me what 'encouragement' means to you? Okay, now that you've defined it, please tell me what you think it means to me."
It's more like giving them a shake on their shoulder with the hand: "what you're looking for is not over here where you're looking for it. Not even close."
The American Body has this tippy-toe, dainty, let me walk on eggshells approach to correction, rebuke.
I'm tired of nice Christians. I'm tired of nice people. I'm tired of Sunday mornings. I'm tired of the masks. I'm tired of other things I won't mention.
I know very well what you said about tolerating no bullshit. That's where I am, and I hold no bones saying so most of the time.
I am living out what is going on in my heart right now. And as God does what only He can do, maybe He'll soften these rough edges. And maybe not. I don't care. I'm done with being ashamed.
I feel you. I think it's kind of like the ring in Lord of the rings for me though. That pharisee seed was never quite destroyed and, even when we seek to tear it out, it returns. I couldn't agree more about correction. It speaks to so much of where I have been recently about faith and church. But I feel like I have to watch very closely what my mind does about it. This understanding that I have can bless or curse me. It is very treachorous. I am not sure I can handle correcting without arrogant pride. I am arrogant and proud and a lot of people pissed me off by making me feel inferior and there is a very strong part of me that wants to believe that I am better than them and wants to use my wisdom to attack them. That is just present in me and if I am not careful, I will be shown just how like them I really am.
Jesus was a very emotional guy. I think John really illuminates that fact the best. But, having the highest concentration of the holy spirit, he has perfect self control and perfect love. I suck. I want to smite everyone that doesn't agree with me. I think God should select me as a memeber of the "who should get smote next" commitee. I'm always up for a good smiting (as long as it isn't me getting smote)
This is going to show me for the elitist snob that I am, but I think part of the problem in church is that we do not draw really brilliant people into leadership. 100 years ago the minister and the town doctor were the two smartest people in town. It took us a hundred tries before we found our pastor. It seems like the people in leadership are more often than not spiritual cherleaders jumping up on stage yelling "Yeah God!! Rah! Rah! for the Lord" Most I have found don't address apologetics, the culture, sociology, psychological issues, etc. If they do address this stuff it is couched in so much christianese you just want to puke. We need honest dialog not this babyfood paternalism that is so prevalent in the church. We need to kick it up a notch intellectually. We are dumbing everything in our world down and wondering why people act like idiots.
Post a Comment