Did the subject of this post get your attention? Good. :) Now I'll share some Bible verses. (Incoming!)
"Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." (Psalm 127:4-5)
"Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress." (Psalm 144:1-2a)
Somewhat continuing on what I blogged about last week, I'm God's friend, and I'm God's child (because I accepted Jesus as my Savior, as John 1:12 explains). God is a loving, forgiving, and gentle God who wants to be close to us, and He wants us to know Him intimately. Yet He's also an almighty, triumphant King. He and His family are at war with an enemy who hates us. Technically, we've already won, but we still need to be ready for battle. I'm talking about spiritual battles and a spiritual war.
There's a quote from the movie Scarface: "Say hello to my little friend." I usually hear that quote repeated so casually. However, I watched that movie for the first time last year. (It was on TV, so it was a cleaned-up version that muted out like every other word.) The actual context of that quote is Al Pacino screaming, "SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!!!" right before he shoots an assault rifle. His "little friend" is his weapon.
If I understand Psalm 127 correctly, if I'm God's child, then I'm like an arrow in His quiver. In this sense, I'm His weapon. I don't think I'm necessarily like a grenade that you can only use once to do some major damage. (Although if God wanted to do something like that, that would be pretty darn cool.) If I'm like an arrow in a quiver, I'm probably cared for a great deal. I'm probably constructed, shaped, and sharpened. And then, when the time is right, I'm selected, carefully aimed at the target, and suddenly released to plunge into the area where I can do the most damage. SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!
Revelation 12 says that there's an accuser (the enemy, i.e., the devil) who is overcome by the blood of the Lamb (Jesus) and the word of "their" testimony. From what I understand, the "their" is talking about me -- the "brethren" who are members of God's family. To me, this all comes together in a sweet way in the following verses.
"I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory; but You give us victory over our enemies, You put our adversaries to shame. In God we make our boast all day long, and we will praise Your name forever." (Psalm 44:6-8)
What? you say you suffer from codependence, and you feel doomed to live in a codependent prison forever? (Picture God reaching into His quiver and pulling me out.) SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND! (The bow makes a "sproing" noise right before I hit the target.) "My name is Tirzah, and let me boast about what God has done for me. He set me completely free from codependence, and now He's at the center of my universe. And He can do the same for you."
What? you say you suffer from depression? you've been suicidal? and you were told that you are doomed to medication and therapy forever? (Picture smoke rising from His nostrils as God hurriedly reaches into His quiver and aims me passionately at the target.) SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!! (I make a loud whizzing sound as I scream towards the target.) "My name is Tirzah! Let me boast about what God has done for me! He set me completely free from depression, He rescued me from a pit, He set my feet on a rock, and now I sing a new Psalm-40 style song to Him! And He can do the same for you!"
The enemy already hates me because he hates God, and I belong to God. So, I'm at war, anyway. I'm also like a secret weapon. Or maybe I'm a not-so-secret weapon. Either way, just as long as God wants me in His family, I'm good to go. :) (Incoming!)
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
AAH! Face to face!
“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.” (Exodus 33:11a)
In the past, I blogged about friendship and about rejection. These two topics have been swirling around in my head lately, so I thought I'd combine them into a blog post. Let me tell you a secret, though, about my head: It's comfortable with abstractness, so you may end up reading swirling abstractness. Wait. If I just told you, it's not a secret anymore. D'oh!
Recently, I've been spending a lot of time with a new friend. Technically, she isn't a "new" friend, because we've known each other for about a year, but lately our friendship has blossomed big-time because we've grown closer to each other. (Hey, Powerhouse, you know who you are. :)) We've found out about a zillion things we have in common, and we've shared deep things with each other. I mean, we're chicks. We've been chick-bonding. We laugh, we cry, we talk, we listen, we hurt, we comfort, we inquire, we counsel. I've heard that guys bond slightly differently than women do -- they play basketball together or go hunting together or watch football together or something. But that's only what I've heard. Or maybe it's exactly like chick-bonding, and it just happens in a realm that's supposed to be a complete mystery to me. My point is that while spending time with my "new" friend -- and I say "new" because it's as if I've suddenly looked around and AAH! hello! brand-new closeness in a friend! yay! -- God has been showing me things about my friendship with Him.
I began this post talking about Moses. From what I understand, he's the one who wrote Exodus, so we're basically getting a firsthand account. From what I understand, he's describing what his relationship with God was like. Jesus died so that we could have this type of relationship with Father God, too. I'm learning that it's a relationship that's designed to be so simple, but so many complicated things can get in the way of it. First of all, we can't see God with our physical eyes. (Or they'd probably explode or something.) Then there are things like lies, fears, pride, etc., that can totally get in the way of simply enjoying God as a Friend and letting Him enjoy us as His "new" friends. The "new" friend I wrote about in the preceding paragraph is very good at telling me to stop beating myself up during our conversations that are supposed to be simple. God basically has to do the same thing during my conversations with Him, too. I'll be like all, "Am I doing this right?? Am I saying the right things?? Why do You like me??" And He'll be like all, "Chill out. I've got you. Keep going." And He'll be infinitely patient with me and calm me down.
Rejection is something that could seriously mess with you. If one or more people, either overtly or indirectly, tell you that they don't want you, you could eventually believe that nobody will ever want you. Failure could seriously mess with you in a similar way. If you mess up over and over again (which anyone who's human has the potential of doing), or worse -- if people repeatedly tell you that you're a failure, when you're really not -- you could eventually believe that you'll never do anything right. These terrible beliefs can seep into pretty much every aspect of your life. At the risk of oversimplifying what's been going on with me these past several months, I'll say that it took me years to finally realize that people kept pooping this crap into my life. In a nutshell, I had friends who were harming my soul. So, I defriended them. To make several very long stories very short, there are some people who I absolutely cannot and will not be friends with anymore, and there are others for which I've left the door open because I would like for the friendship to be repaired someday.
Meanwhile, God is my Best Friend. No one is ever going to hold a candle to Him, no matter how many awesome people come into my life. The Bible says that if we draw near to Him, He'll draw near to us. It's true! If He's my Lord, that means He can get as close as He wants and come near to me anytime I want. So, sometimes I'll be minding my own business, and then suddenly He'll be right there, and I'll be like, AAH! hey, Lord, how's it going? I'm not complaining. I like it. :) It's just that He can be very spontaneous and sudden sometimes.
Switching gears a little bit, I think life and death can happen very suddenly sometimes. This evening, while I was at a dealership getting the oil changed on my car, I went to the cashier and found out that one of the service guys recently got killed in a motorcycle accident. There's a memorial fund set up in his honor, so there was a picture of him and his children on display. I didn't know him, but I used to see him for like 2 minutes every few months while he'd take my information and my key before I'd head for the waiting room. He seemed like a nice guy, but I didn't know him, and now he's gone. It was hard for me to maintain my composure while I was at the cashier, but I wept during the ride home. I don't know if he knows God or not. I sure hope he does. But if what I felt was a teeny-tiny little fraction of the grief that God feels at the death of someone who He created... oh, man. I bet that freakin' hurts.
Remember how I blogged about how rejection can be a dangerous thing and that rejecting God has serious consequences? Please don't reject God. He wants to be your Friend. He wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross for you, in your place, if He didn't want to bridge the gap between you and Him. Life doesn't end when we die. There's an eternity afterwards -- life with God and life without God. Everyone has to choose which one. Again, this might be oversimplifying, but it's kind of like my recent defriending process. If you reject God before you leave Earth, He absolutely cannot and will not be friends with you; but while you're still here, He's left an open door because He wants to have a relationship with you and be your friend.
That's not to say that everyone who knows God and has a relationship with Him has to have the exact same kind of friendship with Him as everybody else. I think God will meet us right where we are. He wants to know us and spend time with us. I've known God for 25 years. For the first 8 years of our very distant relationship, I knew God a lot like I knew the mailman -- ooh, you got something for me? give it! thank you! I'm gonna go hang out with my "friends" now! see ya! And now, I would much rather aim to be close to God and look forward to a lifetime of aiming to be closer and closer with each passing season -- ooh, You wanna have lunch with me? cool! can You talk to me about this problem I have? thank You! I dig hanging out with You, and I don't care what anybody thinks about us! I know You love me, You'll never leave me, and I belong to You!
So, God spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Jesus told His disciples in John 15 that He doesn't call them servants anymore, but He calls them friends, because a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. Psalm 91 talks about dwelling in the secret place of God. What do friends do? Tell each other secrets. From what I understand, God revealed Himself tangibly through Jesus. Yet God is still a mystery. From what I understand, He's got lots more secrets that He wants to share with His friends.
AAH! God wants to be close to me?? He knows everything about me, but He still wants to be my friend?? Wait. I think I need to chill out. D'oh!
In the past, I blogged about friendship and about rejection. These two topics have been swirling around in my head lately, so I thought I'd combine them into a blog post. Let me tell you a secret, though, about my head: It's comfortable with abstractness, so you may end up reading swirling abstractness. Wait. If I just told you, it's not a secret anymore. D'oh!
Recently, I've been spending a lot of time with a new friend. Technically, she isn't a "new" friend, because we've known each other for about a year, but lately our friendship has blossomed big-time because we've grown closer to each other. (Hey, Powerhouse, you know who you are. :)) We've found out about a zillion things we have in common, and we've shared deep things with each other. I mean, we're chicks. We've been chick-bonding. We laugh, we cry, we talk, we listen, we hurt, we comfort, we inquire, we counsel. I've heard that guys bond slightly differently than women do -- they play basketball together or go hunting together or watch football together or something. But that's only what I've heard. Or maybe it's exactly like chick-bonding, and it just happens in a realm that's supposed to be a complete mystery to me. My point is that while spending time with my "new" friend -- and I say "new" because it's as if I've suddenly looked around and AAH! hello! brand-new closeness in a friend! yay! -- God has been showing me things about my friendship with Him.
I began this post talking about Moses. From what I understand, he's the one who wrote Exodus, so we're basically getting a firsthand account. From what I understand, he's describing what his relationship with God was like. Jesus died so that we could have this type of relationship with Father God, too. I'm learning that it's a relationship that's designed to be so simple, but so many complicated things can get in the way of it. First of all, we can't see God with our physical eyes. (Or they'd probably explode or something.) Then there are things like lies, fears, pride, etc., that can totally get in the way of simply enjoying God as a Friend and letting Him enjoy us as His "new" friends. The "new" friend I wrote about in the preceding paragraph is very good at telling me to stop beating myself up during our conversations that are supposed to be simple. God basically has to do the same thing during my conversations with Him, too. I'll be like all, "Am I doing this right?? Am I saying the right things?? Why do You like me??" And He'll be like all, "Chill out. I've got you. Keep going." And He'll be infinitely patient with me and calm me down.
Rejection is something that could seriously mess with you. If one or more people, either overtly or indirectly, tell you that they don't want you, you could eventually believe that nobody will ever want you. Failure could seriously mess with you in a similar way. If you mess up over and over again (which anyone who's human has the potential of doing), or worse -- if people repeatedly tell you that you're a failure, when you're really not -- you could eventually believe that you'll never do anything right. These terrible beliefs can seep into pretty much every aspect of your life. At the risk of oversimplifying what's been going on with me these past several months, I'll say that it took me years to finally realize that people kept pooping this crap into my life. In a nutshell, I had friends who were harming my soul. So, I defriended them. To make several very long stories very short, there are some people who I absolutely cannot and will not be friends with anymore, and there are others for which I've left the door open because I would like for the friendship to be repaired someday.
Meanwhile, God is my Best Friend. No one is ever going to hold a candle to Him, no matter how many awesome people come into my life. The Bible says that if we draw near to Him, He'll draw near to us. It's true! If He's my Lord, that means He can get as close as He wants and come near to me anytime I want. So, sometimes I'll be minding my own business, and then suddenly He'll be right there, and I'll be like, AAH! hey, Lord, how's it going? I'm not complaining. I like it. :) It's just that He can be very spontaneous and sudden sometimes.
Switching gears a little bit, I think life and death can happen very suddenly sometimes. This evening, while I was at a dealership getting the oil changed on my car, I went to the cashier and found out that one of the service guys recently got killed in a motorcycle accident. There's a memorial fund set up in his honor, so there was a picture of him and his children on display. I didn't know him, but I used to see him for like 2 minutes every few months while he'd take my information and my key before I'd head for the waiting room. He seemed like a nice guy, but I didn't know him, and now he's gone. It was hard for me to maintain my composure while I was at the cashier, but I wept during the ride home. I don't know if he knows God or not. I sure hope he does. But if what I felt was a teeny-tiny little fraction of the grief that God feels at the death of someone who He created... oh, man. I bet that freakin' hurts.
Remember how I blogged about how rejection can be a dangerous thing and that rejecting God has serious consequences? Please don't reject God. He wants to be your Friend. He wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross for you, in your place, if He didn't want to bridge the gap between you and Him. Life doesn't end when we die. There's an eternity afterwards -- life with God and life without God. Everyone has to choose which one. Again, this might be oversimplifying, but it's kind of like my recent defriending process. If you reject God before you leave Earth, He absolutely cannot and will not be friends with you; but while you're still here, He's left an open door because He wants to have a relationship with you and be your friend.
That's not to say that everyone who knows God and has a relationship with Him has to have the exact same kind of friendship with Him as everybody else. I think God will meet us right where we are. He wants to know us and spend time with us. I've known God for 25 years. For the first 8 years of our very distant relationship, I knew God a lot like I knew the mailman -- ooh, you got something for me? give it! thank you! I'm gonna go hang out with my "friends" now! see ya! And now, I would much rather aim to be close to God and look forward to a lifetime of aiming to be closer and closer with each passing season -- ooh, You wanna have lunch with me? cool! can You talk to me about this problem I have? thank You! I dig hanging out with You, and I don't care what anybody thinks about us! I know You love me, You'll never leave me, and I belong to You!
So, God spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Jesus told His disciples in John 15 that He doesn't call them servants anymore, but He calls them friends, because a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. Psalm 91 talks about dwelling in the secret place of God. What do friends do? Tell each other secrets. From what I understand, God revealed Himself tangibly through Jesus. Yet God is still a mystery. From what I understand, He's got lots more secrets that He wants to share with His friends.
AAH! God wants to be close to me?? He knows everything about me, but He still wants to be my friend?? Wait. I think I need to chill out. D'oh!
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