...lead to rebellion." Have you ever heard that adage? I can testify
that it's a 100% true adage.
It's amazing how much baggage you can carry with you throughout life.
Stuff gets packed inside you when you're a teeny-tiny child, and then you get
to unpack it -- all rotten, moldy, and nasty -- when you're an adult. Speaking
of baggage, I was quite impressed this morning with the little bags that have
been forming under my eyes. (This photo doesn't really do them justice, but
whatevs.) Lately when I've been buying over-the-counter medicine at Dollar Tree, the
cashiers haven't carded me whenever their register beeps at them. One of the cashiers assured me that I am over
18.
Finally! Some age-appropriate acknowledgement! It's nice to be treated
like a chick who's in her late 30s, because she actually is one.
But when God does
that to me, it's 100% OK, 100% necessary, and 100% craved by the deepest parts
of my insides, simply because of who I am, because of who He is, and because of
who we are to each other.
"When the righteous rejoice, there is great glory; but when the
wicked arise, men hide themselves." (Proverbs 28:12)
"When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when
a wicked man rules, the people groan." (Proverbs 29:2)
Have you ever seen a little kid get scolded by several relatives
simultaneously? as in, a little 3-year-old gets reprimanded by her mom, dad,
grandfather, grandmother, and two aunts, all at the same time? Well, that
little girl used to be me. I don't remember the exact details (I may have also
exaggerated the previous couple of sentences a bit), but years later I heard
about how several authority figures towering over me after I had done something
wrong made me cry.
Basically, I have the same situation at work now. After I do something
wrong, it's common for about 3-7 of my immediate supervisors to come together
and rebuke me. I'm all for correction. I hope I can consider myself a Psalm
141:5 type of woman. But ganging up on an employee to shame her for making
honest mistakes is pretty tacky, in my biased opinion.
So, being stuck at home all by myself during Thundersleet 2015 is a
reason to rejoice. I can't control all 7 of my immediate supervisors, because I
don't have any authority over them. However, I do have authority over my
enemies -- the world, the flesh, and the devil -- so, in that respect, I would
rather be stuck to battle them here alone than at work where I have to fly by
the seats of my 7 bosses' pants.
But when I slip up and let my enemies get the best of me, it still
bothers me. And it's supposed to.
"I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt
offerings, which are continually before Me. I will not take a bull from your
house, nor goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, and
the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, and the
wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for
the world is Mine, and all its fullness. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or
drink the blood of goats? Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the
Most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you
shall glorify Me." (Psalm 50:8-15)
The more in touch I become with my issues, especially the social ones,
the more I get to know God and understand Him a little bit better. He's all
about relationship. In the Bible, I read stories about how He did crazy-awesome
things through and with ordinary people. Sure, there were times when He
miraculously showed up and did powerful stuff at random. But other times, He
moved through and with people who were His close friends.
Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible, gave the Israelites the Ten
Commandments and the law, led them through the wilderness, and bugged Pharaoh
with 10 plagues until God's people were finally released from bondage in Egypt. Then
many years later, he appeared to Jesus along with Elijah. You think God moved
so powerfully through and with Moses because he was a perfect, sinless guy?
Nope. At one point, God was about to kill Moses because he hadn't circumcised his
son. And yet God showed Moses His glory. Personally, in my biased opinion, I
think it was because Moses spent so much time hanging out with God. The Bible
says that Moses spoke to God face to face as a man speaks to his friend.
King David fought a lot of battles, killed Goliath, wrote a lot of
songs, and was called a man after God's own heart. You think God moved so
powerfully through and with King David because he was a perfect, sinless guy?
Nope. He's the one who had an affair with a married woman, impregnated her, and
then arranged to have her husband killed to cover up the whole thing. God saw
everything, of course, and He made sure that King David knew that his little
baby son would die as a consequence of his actions. And yet God honored King
David, even to the point of making sure that Jesus was born into his lineage. Personally,
in my biased opinion, I think it was because David spent so much time hanging
out with God, repenting, and expressing his heart to Him. A huge collection of
his songs to God are included smack-dab in the middle of the Bible.
So, when I read Psalm 50 now, I hear God going, "Look, I'm not really interested in all these freakin' bulls you keep bringing Me. You think I need
more bulls? I already own all the cattle in the entire universe. I'm not
interested in your religious lipservice sacrifices. I want you to acknowledge Me as a Person. I've helped you; please thank Me. You made promises to Me;
please keep them. You can't make it through this life alone; I'm your Daddy;
please call Me when you need Me; when you do, that will give Me glory. So, you
can keep your freakin' bulls. I just want a relationship with you."
I think it's interesting how in the Garden of Eden, when mankind first
sinned, and then first felt ashamed, God didn't immediately show up in
consuming-fire glory and demand, "HOW DARE YOU DEFY THE ONE AND ONLY
LIVING GOD?!?!" He showed up like a Friend and asked, "Where are
you?"
Last night after I messed up, God didn't kill me, and He didn't leave
me. The Holy Spirit was like, "Hey, remember Me? I'm your Helper. You've
been so focused on your body being My temple, but now I'm going to show you how
I'm your Helper." So, this next leg of my journey will probably be pretty
darn cool.
I like having a relationship with God. As introverted and socially
awkward as I am, relationship is ironically the biggest motivation I have to do
anything in this life. No matter how old I get, no matter how many
responsibilities He gives or takes away from me, and no matter how many little
bags I grow under my eyes, I will always be God's child. When He adopts
somebody, He adopts them forever. I am that somebody. He will always be my
Father. So, He can talk to me however He wants. He can set as many rules for me
as He wants. He will never shame me. He will never be arrogant toward me. He
will never make me feel bad about myself. I can trust Him.
I've realized that I haven't been very far from my cats lately. (In
fact, one of them sauntered up to me and meowed while I was typing this just
now.) I haven't gone on any overnight out-of-town trips in a couple of years.
Last year, there was Icemageddon, which confined me to my apartment for a few
days, and then I had 6 months of unemployment that kept me perpetually at home.
Yesterday and today the ice has kept me at home. This entire
time, my cats have rarely been without me.
I think it's safe to say that during this season when I've been very
near and very available to my cats, they've gotten to trust me more than ever.
Even though they're (tamed and altered) wild animals, they let me do things
like temporarily take their food bowls away from them while they're eating so
that I can adjust their portions; perform monthly maintenance on them such as
trim their nails, clean their ears, and apply medicine to their fur (with
minimal to no growling/scratching/biting); and leave my lunch or dinner
unattended without them giving in to temptation and eating it themselves. I know
they're just cats, but I'm very proud of them for all of that.
Cats especially are routine-oriented animals. They depend on me to feed
them at certain times (no, I still don't give in to their demands to be fed dinner at the insane hour of 2:30 p.m.), and they freak out a little bit when
the routine changes (like when I ended up staying home yesterday), but they're
able to adjust pretty quickly. Perhaps I'm reading way too much into their
wild-animal behavior, but in my biased opinion, I think they're able to adjust
because they have a relationship with me and they trust me.
Of course this is very similar to the way that God and I interact with
each other.
When I was much younger, I knew God at a distance. Everyone around me
was always shoving rules down my throat: Don't have sex until you get married,
Don't drink, Don't smoke, Don't do drugs, Don't believe anything that the
Baptist church doesn't teach, Don't vote any way that the Republicans won't
vote, bla bla bla bla bla. Sure, there is some good swirling around in that
boiling pot of garbage, but what kind of motivation do you expect me to have to
follow all those rules just for the sake of rules? In my biased opinion, just
like how God doesn't give a flip about all those bulls, I don't give a flip
about all those rules. If you want me to behave, you need for my behavior to
come naturally to me, and you need to have my heart. A collection of 3-7
supervisors crucifying me in front of the entire office isn't going to win my
heart. A Holy, Gentle, Powerful, Kind, Loving Father who wants me and won't
give up on me is going to win my heart.
And He did.
My mind is always active, and often racing, so I need to be careful about
what I think about. I don't remember the details, but this morning, I (finally)
caught myself fantasizing something angry, probably telling off a friend in my
head, and I was like What the heck? God was like, You grew up in a house where
there was constantly angry, boiling conflict, and it was chronic, so that's all
you know.
So, He and I have been working on changing what I know.
About a month and a half ago when I began fasting (along with the rest
of my church), the prayer that kept bubbling out of my heart was, "Let new
bone and tissue grow." When I had my wisdom teeth pulled a couple of years
ago (of course I blogged about it), those rotting
things were removed from me, and they left rather large holes in their place.
When the dental professionals talk to you about your aftercare, they're
like, "Oh, yeah, new jawbone is going to grow in its place," and they
sort of make it sound like it will heal almost instantaneously. What they don't
tell you is that new jawbone can take a really long time to grow (especially
when you're in your late 30s).
So, metaphorically speaking, my sin and iniquity has been removed from
me like a nasty, rotten tooth. In its place, new metaphorical jawbone has been growing, and its completion will more than likely take some time.
Even though I've been very hard on myself, God seems excited about my
progress. Last night, He showed me that instead of spending a few seconds
resisting and an hour sinning, I'm now spending like an hour resisting and a
few minutes sinning. I still think it's a few minutes too many, and I'm still thankful
that He hasn't flicked me off the face of the earth.
When I listen to secular music, especially love ballads, the "don't
abandon me" songs really catch my attention now. When I listen to Queen's
"Love of my Life," I especially hear God's heart: "Back, hurry
back, don't take it away from Me, because you don't know what it means to
Me." If there are problems in my relationship with God (which are always
on my end, never on His end), what would break His heart would be if I were to
just kick Him to the curb and end the relationship altogether. He doesn't want
me to break up with Him. If there are problems in my relationship with God
(it's not Him, it's me), what He longs to do is fix them and work through them.
He wants me to reconcile with Him.
One time when I was repenting, God wasn't like, "HOW DARE YOU DEFY
THE ONE AND ONLY LIVING GOD?!?!" He was like, "Your heart is good. I
can work with it." You think I would want to snuggle into the unforgiving embrace
of an overbearing God who would readily shame me in front of everybody before
He burns me into a crisp? No way. I want to plaster myself against the Consuming
Fire who has the power, authority, and right to completely dispose of me into
the pit of hell, but who won't, because of what His Son did on the cross for my
sake, and because He adopted me and can't disown me, and because He loves me
and wants to keep me. Heck yes, I want to be close to THAT God. If He sets
rules, I can learn to follow them, with His help, no problem. (The other type
of God would only drive me to give Him lipservice to His face but sin as much
as I want to behind His back.)
Relationship takes time to grow, like an entirely new jawbone. The
deep, close, best kind of relationships can especially take a really long time to
grow. And they're totally worth growing.
I think my cat who sniffed my eyeball this morning can vouch for that.
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