I have some friends who are getting divorced.
One of them ran into an old high school flame a couple of months ago, and lah tee dah dee dah, looky what we have here.
The other one called me this morning.
They were doing laundry last night while the other one was "out", and ran across some cum-stained underwear.
They called me on the phone this morning.
Devastated.
I was wondering how they could even drive at the moment.
Been there.
I've been on both ends of it.
I've been the adulterer and the adulteree.
For adulterers, "the road goes on forever and the party never ends".
For adulterees, anguish that literally doubles you over and is beyond human words to describe.
My heart broke this morning.
God hates this.
My friend now knows the intensity of what Jesus felt when He was betrayed.
No other situation I've been in even comes close to paralleling the fireceness of emotion in this situation.
I never had the faintest clue what it was like, until I was the adulteree.
Jesus went through betrayal while His body was beaten to a smithereened pulp, to the point He wasn't even recognizable as a human being. (Isaiah 52)
My friend got to know more about Jesus today.
Took a drink from His bitter cup.
We don't think about that when we say "Jesus, I will follow you", do we?
"I want to know Jesus...and the fellowship of His suffering".
There is nothing becoming or attractive about this. This isn't what's portrayed by today's Body about what all that church and Jesus stuff means.
I don't think we pause much to think about how strongly and how often God's heart breaks.
Especially when we whore ourselves to the world.
A few weeks ago God asked me, "Was it worth it?"
The breaking of my headstrong, haughty, narcissistic, sin-calcified neck.
The one who had told Him, "Why don't You just cut Your losses? I know I once walked with You, but I have absolutely NO desire to turn from anything. You go Your way. I'll go mine."
I was dead serious.
Six months later He was dead serious, when He pulverized those black (not white) calcium deposits I knew would "never" be broken.
"In a burst of wrath I hid My face from you for a moment, but with age-enduring love and kindness I will with pain have mercy on you.
For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great pain and mercy I will gather you to Me again."
There is still pain. And He is still gathering.
3 comments:
Instead of handing out tracts, we should be giving out a warning. "Proceed with caution, you are going to be ripped to pieces and everything you thought was good about you, you will find out is a complete lie"
What is with the whole high school flame thing? There is no one I dated in high school that I would find even remotely interesting at this point in my life.
i don't know about the h.s. flame thing. Nostalgia, maybe. Some of that "old feeling"? Some "shoulda, woulda, coulda"?
"Hey! Somebody likes me!"???
Here's one I've heard more than once:
"Someone who accepts me for who I am” or “I’m getting back to the ‘old’/’real’ me”.
So little time. So many lies.
As a friend of mine said recently, “the only one who can tell them who they really are is God.”
Selah
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