A More Personal Note |
August 19, 2006 |
Blessed be the Lord, for He has made marvelous
His lovingkindness to me in a besieged city.
- Psalm 31:21
I do not deny the fact that I am extraordinarily cynical. Cynicism in it
truest form is merely giving the highest honor to truth in the face of horrific
iniquity covered in the sweetest vanilla frosting. I don't think there is any
question the virtue I admire the most is authenticity. Some have said this site
is too penetrating, too "cognitive," which I imagine means I don't cut people
enough of a break.
The fact is that contrary to what the World says, Jesus
didn't cut anybody a break, either. He truthfully highlighted their sin to the
extent that we went so far as to shed His blood, taking that sin upon Himself so
we could actually, authentically live. To shrug off whatever evil there
is around is cold-hearted indeed, but to recklessly fail to comprehend its
manifestations is
foolhardy. I'm just addressing a bit of the latter here, and hope to do so as
graciously as I can.
I don't for a second claim to understand everything. But I do
know some things. To say that we don't is to dishonor God who frequently says,
"Here is something to know for certain." If you think I'm being brash to say "I
know this thing for sure," then tell me where I'm wrong and give me a reason
why. This site is all about testing the truth. I can't hide the fact that I long
for engagement from people who desire to envelope every part of themselves with
truth and grace.
My favorite passage in the entire Bible is Psalm 131. It tells
me that even if I don't know everything, even all of God's "wonderful matters,"
then He will still be with me, just as a mother is with her child. The
phenomenal thing is that even so, Jesus very clearly says "Call to me and I will
answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." Wow.
That He'd share these things with me, simply by calling on Him. He also
says that as I trust in Him, that I would "grasp how wide and long and high and
deep is [His] love, and know this love that surpasses
knowledge—that [I/we] may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Furthermore He is "able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us." Within us! He's not just
bopping about doing God-like things distantly and indifferently, but He's
vibrantly doing marvelous things right in us. We get more
wonderful matters by merely being with Him. (Verses here are from Jeremiah 33 and
Ephesians 3. Check them out yourself!)
This principle is so profound that I've named my blog
"Wonderful Matters." It
is an augmentation to this site in that I just have the standard blog takes on
things in life all around. Much of it is highlighting the contrast between the
World and the Kingdom, and because often I so cynically slice open the World's
duplicity, one may be puzzled as to why these things are Wonderful Matters at
all. The reason is simple. It is because in the face of it all we may
genuinely rejoice that Jesus holds us in His mighty grip. That is the most
wonderful matter of all.
I must say that I want my desire for Him to be purely authentic,
and being a Catholicist for as long as I'd been I know I can be fooled into
believing things that I think are true but aren't. As much as I walk on the
path out of Babylon I'm honored that God would be with me in that adventure. In
this I can't neglect to point out that I am demonstrably passionate about the
truth. When deception is particularly gruesome, I feel it a bit more acutely.
I say this because a year ago I wrote the following, with the full intention of
putting it in this site somewhere because it so boldly laid out my vision for
what this endeavor was all about. I held it because I considered that
it may have been a bit too stinging, but if it is truth then it is truth. I now
include it here in this note because it is indeed a viscerally personal
expression of how I feel at times, and much of the reason I do this website.
I can't deny, however, that this site is intended to be a raking indictment
of those who claim to be Jesus' best buddies, and then enter into pacts with
the World that make them enemies of God. Much of Jesus' own ministry was
spent issuing such indictments. It is those deceptive leaders that He
addressed most severely—and in today's world they are doing just as much to
make sons and daughters of hell.
They work so hard at trying not to be Pharisees—but faced with
losing congregants in mass exodus, they obstinately refuse to sever those
contracts. Those pastors will say "We can’t tell them not to pay
taxes [when they know nothing about taxes that the law doesn’t require], that’s like telling them to steal a stereo
or drive 80 miles-per-hour on the sidewalk." They don’t get it. "We can't
end our 501c3 status, we'd lose too much cool stuff." How sad.
It's not that they don't understand, it's that they don't want to. Jesus is
right there to heal their blindness, yet when they are asked "What do you
want?" their mouths say "I'm serving God!" but their hearts say "I want to
stay blind because I can’t leave my little comfort patch here where Cain
says nice things to me."
Never mind that they don't want people truly assured of their place in
heaven, that they don't have people truly engaged in vibrant abiding
relationships with one another, that they don't want people who are
emotionally ripped / physically disabled / demonically possessed to be free
and healed. They'll say, "Yes, we do!"
Nah. No they don't.
If
they did they'd let Jesus stop them from being blind. But Jesus won't heal
those who don't want it. So exactly as He said, what you've got is a bunch
of blind people leading blind people. What makes it particularly wretched is
that they're all pretending to see.
Why
am I so impassioned about this?
It
is because I envision someone like K.M. healed [I had written her name out
originally, but for these purposes I just feel more comfortable with this
reference. It'll simply be enigmatic at this point.] …and I just so would
love to see her live who she is fully and beautifully as God intended her to
live—without that disability.
I've thought, really, am I stepping on what God is doing and what the M.'s
love about her, being so disabled and loving to get that one kind of toy
over and over again after she crushes each one.
Nah, how lame is that. This is like the cochlear implant bozoness, you
remember, the idea that some deaf "advocates" put forth that cochlear
implants just keep people from their "natural deafness" or something.
[A cochlear implant was invented a number of years ago to fix hearing
impairment originating in the inner ear. Shortly thereafter I saw a news
feature with these "advocates" that just made my blood boil.]
I wrestle with this question: Is it best just to let it go—go with what we got, we all die
anyway and before that, life's a struggle no matter how much you believe in
God?
Thing is, we do all kinds of things to abate the struggle. Why not
respecting 861? Being 501c3-free? Living and working unincorporated? All the rest of
fully
trusting in our Father?
Before Stephen was stoned, what did he do?
He lit into those who named the name of God and yet deceptively drew people
away from Him.
Really then, for us to enjoy
wonderful matters, we must get out of the putrid ones. But the "we must get out"
does not imply that we can do a single thing to do that. The only thing
we can do is simply, plainly, humbly say to the One who can get us out,
"Please. Get me out. Thanks." Then He does everything.
Unless we say it this way: "Please. Get me out. Except let me take this
particularly lovely piece of World sewage with me. Thanks."
What do
you expect God to say?
So,
yeah, maybe I have expectations that are too high. Maybe I do want to be around
people who, if they haven't already abandoned their sewage, are authentically
asking God to do so. Too often I feel like Jeremiah, who in chapter nine writes
about wanting to cry, about being so affected by the adultery around him that he
longs to retreat to a place where people are vibrantly authentic and richly understanding.
This
place can't be digital—for some will say
the de-Catholicized church is only on-line right now, through Internet sites,
blogs, chatrooms, email and newsgroup exchanges. To resign ourselves to
such engagement is quite depressing. No, those people in the
"lodging place" are there physically, they are the "flesh and bones" of
Jesus as Paul writes in Ephesians 5. Yes, this place may be "remote," to get away
and to rest and—in fellowship with others—to keep from being
corrupted by the World. With His resolve, however, we must not stay there.
Remember, it is a lodge in the desert.
We must be out about in the city,
as Jeremiah faithfully was, not to plant ourselves in the middle of the public
square to boast about how upright and spiffy we are. There are plenty of those
churches out there and they drive people away by the droves (501c3 entities are contracted
as ministers of condemnation). Rather, we must be in the midst of Babylon to be
available as reconcilers, and to utilize all the wisdom and insight God gave
Daniel when he was there.
My reading of Scripture tells me the Kingdom
is here. No, it is not in the subdivisions of the World as so many
religionist operatives declare it is when someone says "The Kingdom is here."
Those who long to have their sight back can see it. Yes, those who tend it have work to do,
and must
bear much. But God is God. He is not only Sovereign but our Father. I can
only think in all this,
My Lord, what You would do if we
just asked You...
***
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This page was originally posted by David Beck at
yourownjesus.net on August 19,
2006
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