today's misc

For some time now (as if it's any small secret) I have had a growing uneasiness within the Body.

A look around seems to reflect a baby-fied Body. As if we're to live tiptoe-on-eggshell lives (toward each other and toward those not of the Way).

Any message communicated is supposed to be positive, and warm, and cozy, and encouraging, and uplifting, and edifying, and...aren't we all familiar wtih this?

Earlier today I read Ezekiel 16.

Wow, was that ever refreshing. God told His own how He had taken them at birth, writhing in the blood of their own afterbirth, and cleaned them up. As they grew, God himself adorned them with clothes and other things of His. Because of this, they had grown into something of great value and beauty. They were "blessed" (God, I hate that word).

As time wore on, they used this God-given beauty for self-indulgent ends, spitting on God and going to such lengths with the indulgence that even ungodly people were cleaner in God's eyes than them.

What did God do? Say "Oh, it's okay, just return to Me and I'll bless you. It's okay. You're still young and growing. I am patient, I am kind. I am tender and merciful"?

No.

Did God whip out a "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, to bless you...to give you a hope and a future"?

Sort of. First He said they were going to reap what they had sown. In saying this, God was not reserved, had no hidden meanings in describing what the reaping was going to be.

It was graphic. And dismal. And fierce. And deadly.

God pulled no bones about it.

He didn't sugar coat what He said.

He was straight up. And angry.

There would be reconciliation afterward. At that later time God would extend a covenant to them and they would know that He is the Lord.

When God puts someone on their back, He leaves little doubt.

I know this, for I have lived it.

And am still living it.

I drifted from Him, and it grew from nonchalance into bedrocked, calcfied, stiff-necked apostasy.

To the point I told Him I thought I'd gone past the point of no return.

That based on my own assessment of my heart, and what I was living, that I had absolutely no desire, no drive, no fire, no whatever to intercourse with Him anymore.

My neck was stiff. And I knew it.

And I was honest with God that it was stiff. Unbending.

I mean, duh, He knew it, but what does a parent do when their child says "I've run away, and I don't figure you want me back. I have no intention of coming back.

There's no point to your keeping a spot open for me at the dinner table. I don't belong. I don't desire to come back. I admire the family, always will, but from a distance.

I don't fit in, so why don't you just cut your losses? Don't concern yourself anymore. I was part of the family, but I'm not around amymore. Haven't been for years. Postcards are fine, but we're pretty much past much else."

That's in a nutshell what I told God.

I had no interest in His ways. Not to the point of being willing to forsake what I'd become bedrocked in.

Want to send a postcard or letter? Fine.

Want me to come back? Thanks for offering, but no thanks.

Let's just call it a draw. Y'all go do your thing, I'll do mine.


I was content to be lost. That's all there was to it.

I was living Ezekiel 16.

Taken something God had authored and used it for self-indulgence to the hilt. No rules. Full steam ahead.

I have been on the business end of God's anger, and it ain't pretty.

It laid my entire being out on my back.

Naked. Exposed. Shamed.

Stung. Chafed. Smitten. Raw.

These words are a joke. They don't even begin.

But here is the nugget amidst it all.

Amidst the marrow-piercing anguish? Love.

It doesn't matter what face God is showing us at any given moment.

Underneath the face, whatever it may be, at the core: love.

I know Ezekiel 16.

I know what it is to reap. I know what it is to be the object of God's anger.

But even in the most godless moments of my life there has been honest communication with Him.

The conversation above, I really had with Him. Thought I was past the point of no return, so why bother?

He bothered because of His love. Not His anger.

The face was anger, but c'mon, pleading for blind mercy when I purposely and defiantly shit in His face for years?

Sure He's merciful. But He's also just.

Which is it?

The answer is yes.

Just like Ezekiel 16.

Not far into the come-to-Jesus party (literally), a friend shared with me a similar passage to the one in Ezekiel.

This one also describes my situation, and God, to a T.

"Fear not, for you shall not be ashamed; neither be confounded and depressed, for you shall not be put to shame. For you shall forget the shame of your youth, and you shall not [seriously] remember the reproach of your widowhood any more. For your Maker is your Husband--the Lord of hosts is His name--and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; the God of the whole earth He is called. For the Lord has called you like a woman forsaken, grieved in spirit, and heartsore--even a wife [wooed and won] in youth, when she is [later] refused and scorned, says your God. 'For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion and mercy I will gather you [to Me] again. In a little burst of wrath I hid My face from you for a moment, but with age-enduring love and kindness I will have compassion and mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.'"
(Isaiah 54, Amplified Bible)

So that's part of my story, folks.

I didn't write this post for any particular reason.

If you've read any of my back posts, you don't have to go far to see me scald the Positive Gospel and all the creampuff Christianity b.s. going around.

I've been smitten by God, my father. And I'm better for it.

Don't understand why this gets such a bad rap from people.

Sure it's going to hurt like hell. But do you just want to eat baby food forever?

Selah