Women Pastors and Wives Submitting to Their Husbands

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Love:: Lifestyle:: HealthLeave a comment

The Man Holds The Seat Of Authority

From my understanding of the biblical text, I do not think women should be set in a position of spiritual authority over men, not as a pastor/minister/priest/bishop of the church. The reason for this, as Paul points out, goes back all the way to the garden: women have the power of influence and she’s a bit more constituted for chaos.

The Man Is The Spiritual Father

The authority of the pastoral office is one of spiritual father and a woman should not usurp that seat over a man. Likewise, the man should not willingly submit himself to the woman as a spiritual authority over him, not even in marriage should this be done. Personally, I think this scenario creates the Oedipal mother, imo.

Offices Women Can Hold According to the Biblical Text

Now I do believe that women can teach men and that woman can hold the other offices of Prophet, Teacher and Evangelist. These teaching offices do not assume a fatherly authoritative position over men – and more importantly, even the great Apostle Paul was taught by at least one godly woman and he esteemed the Prophetess Phoebe for her role in God’s Kingdom. 

Eve, the Apple and Why Wives Should Submit to the Leading of the Husband

The husband must lead by following God, this is his responsibility. Of course he should listen to his wife and take her points seriously, but he should also think through her points objectively and not be lead around by her. Likewise, the wife should submit to the guidance and protection of her husband – had Eve taken the uneaten apple to her husband and explained what the serpent had spoken to her, all would not have been lost. This is an illustration of why the man can take the role of spiritual father as a Pastor over other men, and the woman should not.

Does God Really Want Women to Remain Silent?

Now, just in case you are wondering about the verse, ‘women should be quiet’ that we hear often from the legalistic Pharisees, I’ll address this also. What most people reading the text superficially overlook is that the women in Timothy’s church, whom Paul was referring to, were pagan and secular-minded Ephesians. They didn’t understand the concept of sitting quietly in a religious temple/church and were likely gossiping and distracting their husbands with questions – which should have been asked at home.

The Gentiles…..we are an unruly bunch, wild olive branches grafted into the true Olive Tree. We had and still have much to learn about how God’s KINGdom is constituted and where we fit into His shining City on a Hill. We should be thankful, both men and women, that God opened the doors to His kingdom and invited us in.

Future Posts and Such

I’ve been thinking a lot about many of the posts I make across social media. I put time and effort into my responses on topics that mean a great deal to me. Oftentimes, comments on other people’s posts or videos will never get seen. So I’m going to share some of my comments I’ve made over the years here as posts. Many people are searching for answers, maybe these can help you in some way.

I hope your holiday season is going well. I know it can be a difficult time for all of us who have lost loved ones or suffered other loss in life. May God be with you and carry you through these times. His light shines through the darkest of nights and He will never leave us nor forsake us.

Corruption Made Manifest In The Light

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Bread & Butter MorselsLeave a comment

The World Right Now

I feel a sense of justice and recompense prevailing finally after the longest, darkest night my generation has ever lived through – covid and all of the Biden/Obama Admin corruption.

That said, I’m only beginning to see that underneath it all was an even more sinister plot led by none other than Barak Obama for over a decade. I feel comfortable saying this because of one thing:

All of Obama’s ‘men’ are being rounded up and the evidence against them is not lying; his corruption is made manifest in the light. You’ve got to take out the surrounding infrastructure first in order to get to the kingpin. And that infrastructure is coming down fast, his idea of a weakened America crumbling before his eyes. It isn’t Cain’s blood that when spilt, cries out to God. It is Abel’s blood whom God hears and by which is moved to action.

New World Order: The Lust For Greater Power

I can’t understand why Obama and all those like him hate America so much. Fifty years from now, perhaps there will be psychological documentaries delving into it.

I still hold to the notion that it’s all in service to a systematic destruction of all nation’s sovereignty in an effort to form the New World Order we’ve heard several Presidents speak plainly about. Power and authority over the United States of America is enormous, but that’s nothing compared to power and authority over the whole earth and all her inhabitants.

It is the epitome of Lucifer’s narrative arch. He grapples for what is beautiful and orderly which only God can create, but his own corruption expels him from what he longs for most.

No One Will Be King Over The Earth, Save The One Christ

People don’t believe God when He says, ‘The earth is mine and the fulness thereof,” and “the meek shall inherit the earth”.

God’s words are truth.

God owns it all, Christ is God, and if we remain in Christ we are coheirs with Him. I’m not speculating on this:

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

Romans 8.16-19

The corrupt Cherub and his evil principalities shall not take dominion of God’s fulness.

Social Media

The sense of vindication right now on social media is so gratifying after all the suppression of speech wielded directly by our government. To feel the tide turning is a relief. Though I still find myself anxious about the ‘what if.’ What if they somehow scrape back power and start the oppression all over again? When the righteous rule the people rejoice, truly. To have one indivudual block you or disagree with you is uncomfortable but not oppressive. When the entire power of a governmental body shuts down all your avenues of expression – it is suffocating.

I wonder if atheists deem Christianity so horrible as opposed to Islam? Because when you ignore that this is a spiritual battle, you play not a small role in where America finds herself. And absolutely to where England already has fallen. Why can’t people be more introspective? How is it that so many are wholly blind to the fact that they are or have contributed greatly to the problem? Atheists are convinced there is no God and no devil. This puts them wholly at a disadvantage to see the world as it truly is – indeed because they have plucked out their eyes through which to see it. They are blind.

This is why good people perish and evil often prospers. When you don’t have a conscience there is no inner taxing on the mind and soul. This is also why God speaks extensively in the NT about our gained righteousness which makes us, as God’s people, right standing before Him, regardless of our shortcomings. How? By the work Christ did on the Cross. Because if we could have made ourselves pure and righteous, Christ would not have had to die for us. Thankfully by His sacrifice we gain His righteousness and our reconciliation as a once fallen human species is complete. We can come into communion with God where the enmity of sin is abolished through the Cross. Amen!

Fish, Aquatic Plants and the Aquarist Life

I’m working on a post about a few small fish tanks I’ve been building the past several weeks. It’s interesting to me that after feeling a bit better the project I undertake is to start aquatic water boxes. Amazing what happens when your body is supplied with the correct amount of hormones to function properly. Energy and will work hand in hand. One without the other – much less lacking either – and no progress can be made on any front.

Through this also I realized something I never could pinpoint; I am allergic to yeast. Like, no wonder I don’t enjoy alcohol. Everyone always talks about how good drinking a glass or two makes them feel and it always made me feel sick. I like Amaretto Sours though, mild as they may be for some.

Dreams and Such

Also, I’ve made some progress with the recurring dream of endless corridors, hallways and mazes that I could never quite find my way out of….I indeed think I’ve unravelled the conundrum and I won’t be having this dream anymore. That post to come soon also. Dreams are fascinating:)

And finally, a followup to my Minimalistic lifestyle approach. In an attempt to order my surroundings better and feel better in mind and spirit, I adopted the minimalistic approach. This too has worked wonders – even though I was stalled in this endeavor by my thyroid retiring on me. I’ve since been able to complete much of what was started last year.

Have a beautiful week, and I pray that more and more you understand how you fit into the Body of Christ in this earth and what a privilege it is to be called an heir of God~

Let’s Dine

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Bread & Butter MorselsLeave a comment

My Affinity for Dining Scenes in Film

There are several aspects of film I delight in, one of which being when directors include dining scenes. And not all are created equal as audio, visuals and symbolic undertones all play a part in whether I consider them an elevated and experiential addition or just an afterthought of the screenwriter. These dining scenes can be found in books or film but I’m going to focus on film today.

One of my first memories of enjoying food in storying-telling was when my Grandmother would read the children’s book Pinocchio to me as a child. From what I remember, Geppetto is carrying a brown sack of groceries, the illustration depicted lettuce, carrots and other produce just visible over the rim of the bag and the words she read (and how she read them, or better, how my five-year-old ears heard them) brought everything to life for me as a young child.

Then there’s The Boxcar Children cooking some sort of stew in the wilderness; the siblings in A Wrinkle In Time always eating liverwurst sandwiches with cream cheese and jam; the finger foods and other prepared sandwiches in Donna Tartt’s A Secret History….I could go on and on. I love food scenes in stories. Dining denotes community, togetherness and creativity in preparation. It immerses me into the characters’ world and if thoughtfully executed, can be used metaphorically in film revealing layers of meaning and understanding. I simply love when directors make a statement with dining.

I might add here that the whole experience for the viewer is what I find important as well as placement within the story arc. In the case of the film All Is Lost, it is mainly the placement that I find emotionally relevant, whereas in Godland many aspects of the dining experience are incorporated including relevant placement, audio, symbolic importance and visual cues.

Now let’s get dining, shall we?

‘Godland’ (2022)

This gorgeous and haunting film was shot on location in Iceland using 35mm film. The banquet of sounds is a symphony to my ears. I love when filmmakers incorporate audio as another layer of storytelling, such as the sound of the horses teeth chomping down on their bits, the sound of hooves clopping along the rugged wilderness paths and of course, the clinking of dishes and silverware and gulps of coffee while leaning over steaming stews. It’s a stark contrast to the cold winter lurking just outside, one that can be felt and understood by the viewer. There are moments I relish in this film, hellish moments that are simply nature taking its course and when taken alone mean nothing more than the act, but when combined with the underlying dark river of the human psyche, become altogether terrifying.

The Priest And His Selfish Breakfast

In Godland’s opening scene the head priest takes his breakfast in front of the younger missionary, Lucas, who he is preparing to send off to Iceland on a brutal quest in winter to establish a church. The head minister is sumptuously consuming his delicacies from a spread of hard boiled eggs, buttered bread, a bowl of fruit and what seems to be lukewarm coffee, as there is no notable steam rising. There are mugs and other goblets and linens spread across the table all in service to the head priest.

The younger missionary priest, however, neither partakes nor is invited to partake in the rather lukewarm, suspiciously humble feast of his elder mentor and instead watches and listens to his master explain how deprived he will soon be in the backcountry of Iceland’s unforgiving terrain. It is altogether profoundly foreshadowing, having what he might want and need metaphorically right in front of him, but unable to enter into it and satiate his soul…very much symbolic of an empty stomach.

I could do a whole blog post on this film alone but I’m not sure I can do it justice. The director is brilliant, having scenes unfold on screen and you don’t know what you’re looking at – is it small, or enormous? A person, or dirt? I found myself pulled into the mud, into the echos, the water, the cold, the dark undertow of this narrative. It’s a pity the most brilliant movies seem to get overlooked by mainstream.

The movie is also a folk musical – the only kind of musical to which I’m happy to subject myself. There’s less dialog than most movies might contain and I love that. The folk songs, sung by the party’s Icelandic guide Ragnar, seem more like dark incantations than bubbly outbursts of a carefree heart.

“I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell this story,”….as the camera pans across a lush green mountainous waterfall, Ragnar discloses to the group, in his Icelandic tongue, a sinister tale as they huddle around a fire roasting their meat. This movie is treacherous, just ordinary people, yet so creepy and hauntingly wrong – or is that just how nature unfolds without God? As if you’re witnessing on screen the madness within all of mankind when not checked by God. I kept waiting for someone to open the windows so that God might shine in and illuminate the darkness, but no one lifted a finger to do so.

A Second, Warmer Dining Scene

At around the intermission we get another dinner scene. This time the priest Lucas is ragged, unable to pay attention and hardly eats at all (yet again deprived, though satiety is within reach) while those around him gulp down wine, slurp freshly caught oysters, hot soup, and crunchy buttered bread all rather merrily. The table is more alive than the head priest’s lukewarm, uninviting table at the onset of his quest. Here there’s roasted meat, shared goodwill with smiles, wine and warmth.

Our dear protagonist Lucas is inconsolable, his inner world untouchable, rigid and perplexed.

‘All Is Lost’

This film has a short but almost spiritual scene of the sailor played by Robert Redford, eating a meal in the cabin of his sailboat. After an accident that leaves a huge gaping hole in his boat, he’s left cleaning up the mess and repairing it for the next two days. It’s hot, there’s sea water up to his knees in the cabin and he has to sleep in a hammock while the watery chaos shifts beneath him with the waves of the sea.

Up until this one dining scene he’s eaten only out of cans, pork and beans perhaps. He can’t use the oven to warm his meals because it’s still underwater. After several days of continually using the bilge pump, patching the side of the vessel, frying under the scorching sun struggling to order all the chaos, he does one last mopping up and finally his cabin is returned to normal.

He’s got one major problem though – no working electrical equipment to call out an S.O.S. There’s no hope of rescue. This dawning realization was difficult to swallow and he knew he’d have to either save himself or be lost at sea.

So out comes the whiskey, and one other thing he is capable of doing for himself – preparing a good hot meal which he’s been deprived of for days. What follows is a well placed scene of our skipper as he chops up veggies on the cutting board, the sizzling noises included in the audio as he sautés an onion. We hear the clinking of utensils, steam rising from the cooking pots, all a symbolic (though somber) dance of reward for a job well done. Order is restored.

While this cooking scene unfolds it starts to rain and he goes topside to wash off the crusty salt water that’s dried on his skin and face. The stress is being washed away, and he’s capping off all the hard work with a tomato and pasta sauce meal along with a good deal of whiskey. Them be sailors…

‘Conspiracy’ (2001)

Here the dining tables are elegantly dressed and nothing is held back in the preparation or presentation of the delicacies. Gourmet dishes served by butlers and an army of nervous chefs and servers to the Nazi generals, lawyers and administrators. These dishes, however elegant in presentation, come across as less than appetizing. They’re dressed limply on shiny silver platters, arranged in such a manner that exudes a lukewarm tinge to the eye, lifeless. I doubt I’d be partaking in these innocent, (is food innocent?) yet ravenous delicacies of death:

Do not eat the food of a begrudging host,
    do not crave his delicacies;
for he is the kind of person
    who is always thinking about the cost.
“Eat and drink,” he says to you,
    but his heart is not with you.
You will vomit up the little you have eaten
    and will have wasted your compliments.

~Proverbs 23.6-8

The poultry, ribs, seafood all hinting at a danger of…moral poison in their sweaty, grayish appearance. No deliciousness or sumptuousness to them. And many of the plates throughout the film are left uneaten, wasted – some members of the Nazi party even stating they did not eat at all. The wine flowed from every corner, the cigar smoke hung in the air but the ravenous souls of those in attendance were already drunk on a wrathful wine prescribed from a God they didn’t even believe in, much less fear.

‘Margin Call’

The last one I’ll mention in this post is Margin Call. The entire movie was suspenseful, intense and involved highly anxious interactions. It mostly took place throughout one night in the throes of statistical madness. After all the demonic financial numbers are grappled with, when Hell is served up for everyone else to deal with – indeed as the movie comes to the end of itself – the viewer is escorted to an upper floor of the high rise corporation that has a view of the New York skyline. We get to have dinner after a treacherous day on Wall Street selling mortgage-backed securities.

A quiet reprieve. Nestled over an elegantly draped table with fine linens, glassware and well prepared food is our antihero CEO relaxing, reading the newspaper and enjoying his dining moment after the massive storm he managed to evade…and indeed thrust upon the entirety of the world as we’d soon come to understand in 2008,

“Excuse me for eating but, it’s been a long day.”

We take a breath with him at this point in the movie. It’s a well placed dining scene in the aftermath of the carnage that is high stakes banking; an elite privilege after selling out the whole world to Satan…

…or perhaps ’tis Satan himself seated across from our weathered Sam Rogers, excusing himself to dine high above the chaos he’s just unleashed.

Afterthoughts

When I first began writing this a few weeks ago, I had no idea how difficult it would be. Who knew there was a journalistic language that film critics use when analyzing movies? I knew some reviews were better written than others but there really is a niche language concerning film dialog. The good thing is I’m not trying to be a film critic, the bad news is, I don’t have the means to make this as interesting as it could be. I thoroughly enjoyed rewatching all these films in order to create this list of dining scenes, and there are more I could have included.

Five weeks now that I’ve been on this thyroid pill and thank God, the brain fog and lack of energy is slowly subsiding. It’s annoying, I have to admit. I also bought an air purifier – God only knows all the invisible things we are subjected to without realizing it.

May you have a dining kind of week filled with warmth, good foods, and good vibes~

The Sanhedrin, Within and Without

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Healthy LivingLeave a comment

The Scene

One of my favorite conversations in the whole Bible transpires between Jesus of Nazareth and Pontius Pilate. This complex exchange takes place after Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin, the religious authority that ruled over all of Jewish life at the time. He spoke hardly a word to His own people, and they rejected Him. He held a profound conversation with a Gentile ruler, who in turn tried desperately to save His life. I often see the world in these two categories; the supremacists who think they know everything (and God shuns them), and the lost Gentiles of the world who know nothing, with whom God willingly engages.

When to Remain Silent

The Sanhedrin ‘trial’ if you will, took place in Mark 14:53-65. The Son of Man only spoke sparingly, if at all. I think it’s important to note that when He did speak, He told them who He was which in turn made them furious. These are the same individuals that pursued Him throughout His entire three year ministry. They were relentless.

They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, the elders and the teachers of the law came together.

It was a big bullying ring. This angers me because I see the same thing today happening in churches who think they are the only ones that God has chosen – and yet, God does not engage with them, or only sparingly. It’s sad too, but it’s hard to have much empathy for legalistic dictators who think they’re always right.

Words carry the full force of life and death; God describes the tongue in such a manner. He knows exactly how the human being works, inside and out. His Spirit divides between our every thought and intention. God cannot be fooled:

“Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?” But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.

When to Listen

Sometimes we think silence is just weakness. But silence is actually a powerful force. Why speak when no one is listening? You only diminish your self worth and cast your pearls before people who don’t care for you or like you – which gives them every opportunity to trample over you even more. It’s good to fast our words, our conversations, sometimes in order to reset the board internally and allow the Spirit of God to work in us. We can’t listen if we’re constantly talking, even if it’s prayer to God. To be still and listen for His answer provides a healing balm to our souls.

A Time of Reflection

It’s a good thing to take time to build our relationship with God and commune with the Holy Spirit. I’m glad I can do this with little repercussions. I’d encourage you today to add time to your prayer life where you’re not just presenting your petitions before our Father’s throne but also listening for His answers, His direction and His will in our lives. Practicing His Presence is a beautiful way to build our relationship with Him.

Some Additional Catching Up

So I’m not going to go into a ton of detail (and bellyaching and complaining) but I just recently found out that my thyroid has been under active for over a year. Probably for nearly 3-4 years now, slowly dying while sapping the very life out of me.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on, lifestyle? diet? not enough exercise? And in doing all these things I just thought I needed to do more. But as the years rolled by, I had less and less energy, not more. I was perplexed and concluded that I must’ve just broke, and indeed, I kinda did. When your body sabotages you, it can be a difficult thing to manage when you aren’t sure what’s happening.

I thought, ‘well, I guess I’m just lazy now. covid and all the ptsd broke me.’ And well, it did, but I still couldn’t understand why my recovery wasn’t happening faster. It wasn’t mental or emotional at that point. No, but a little thyroid hormone that decided to copout on me was the culprit! I had been talking to my aunt about this extensively and turned out we were on the right track. Then I found out at least one of my friends was also taking it and she encouraged me with the results she had. Turned her whole life around. Deadly, these hormones zapping away as our bodies show the signs of that mortal inevitability. I’m still going to hope in the promise that ‘He renews my youth like the eagles.’ I like that. No wonder we died at 45 two hundred years ago. Mortality is a creep!

Life is Strange

Well, who knows if this will actually work, taking this tiny little pill everyday, but I sure hope it does. Otherwise I really might as well retire to a tiki hut in Central America and blow away in the next hurricane. There’s nothing worse than having zero energy or enthusiasm about anything and even when you do, you’re so tired all day there’s little fun or enjoyment in it.

To think back over the past three years and how awful I felt about myself….things aren’t always as they appear, sweet people. Knowledge is power. Don’t let the Sanhedrin within dictate your life to you, or dictate to you who you are based solely on an antiquated set of past failures. God says your more than that, and indeed you are. Much more, friends.

So here’s to looking forward and doing more in the coming future. For now though, I think I’ll stop beating up on myself, pushing myself to do more, and being mad that I can’t do it and instead relax into a better state of mind, taking some time to just recalibrate, reassess and let this little pill work its wonders I think is in order.

Stay strong and rest in Him beautiful people, you are the apple of His eye~

Seizing the Hour and the Day

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Bread & Butter MorselsLeave a comment

Cleansing Toxic Government

When the righteous are in power, the people rejoice. This is biblical truth. I am thankful that we have Donald Trump for President otherwise our country would have been tossed into a gutter of far left radical sludge. I’m not angry with this current administration, am angry at the times. I’m frustrated that no one can give an honest, transparent answer. Mostly, I’m angry that the previous administration seems to have done horrific things to the people of this country and the world – releasing covid, executing tyrannical law complete with vaccine passports and mask mandates and how far apart from one another we could stand (1984 just scaled down a bit), and the destruction of our society by mobs.

Through a massive prayer initiative by the Church, God heard our prayers and the previous administration was removed from office. We succeeded in seizing the hour and the day for the Kingdom of God. I believe we saved our country from the control of the globalists and their heinous agenda.

Choosing God Over Satan’s Worldly Systems

Let’s be real, the Seven Pillars are not metaphorical but active systems Satan and demonic principalities use to hold sway over the children of man. Government, Business, Family, Media, Arts/Entertainment, Religion and Education. These are the highest battle grounds for influence upon all of God’s creation. God laid out what was happening in the spiritual realm:

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence, and the violent have been seizing it by force.

Matthew 11.12

It’s interesting that the word interjects a starting point for this phenomenon as beginning sometime during the days of John the Baptist. People often argue about the differences between the Old and New Testaments. To me they flow together seamlessly when you realize the following:

  • That Christ is the Seed spoken of in Genesis,
  • The same Seed foretold by every Prophet of old,
  • The same Seed born the Son of Man and of God,
  • The same Seed buried in the ground and Who died because as Jesus noted, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit,”
  • And the Seed Who rose again from the grave and pulled us out of darkness along with Him,

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Colossians 2.15

It Isn’t God vs. Satan

Christ is the Seed that crushed the serpents head, Satan himself, by the power of the Cross. We tend to think evil is so powerful but it only bruised Christ’s heal, whereas Christ crushed evil’s head. No contest, I’ve said it before, the fight is not between God and Satan. Satan lost faster than a strike of lightening from the heavens to the earth. The word even speaks symbolically through the King of Tyre regarding this pathetic Cherub: Those who see you stare at you, they look at you carefully, thinking: “Is this the man who shook the earth, the one who made kingdoms tremble?

No. The battle is between the Church and Satan. My, my, my dear people of God, we have to understand this! Destined for the Throne by Paul E. Billheimer beautifully illustrates this truth we must grasp in order to wage this war in the heavens and see the result in the earth of our prayerful labor in Christ.

Seize the Hours, Seize the Days

Arrest the time you’ve been given, saints. Either the Church rises to the sound of the trumpet in battle and seizes the day or else the Seven Pillars will continue to crumble and fall. Israel, because of their disobedience lost all the splendor of the Days of Solomon, all their glory and pride. They lost their land promised to them by God. We have to fight the spiritual battle in prayer and in action. I don’t have time to write everything on my heart which concerns our present times. Either we lose our life for God or the world will devour us.

Someone I listen to regularly said they don’t see the United States anywhere in the Book of Revelation, implying it ceases to be a coherent country by future biblical accounts.

Now I have a difficult time believing this for many reasons I won’t go into here, but the thought of that struck a deep seated belief I thought wouldn’t come to pass – the loss of my nation, my homeland. I pondered this for sometime afterword and still do at times. It haunts me.

We see nations fall everyday it seems, Syria, Iraq, ancient Persia and Egypt, never putting ourself into that position. Nothing but God is permanent and everything that is permanent on this earth is still temporal to all of eternal life.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:18

Revealing the Truth of the Word

It’s difficult to write like this, to write of spiritual truths because there is a war constantly against truth – a war in the heavenly realm and the natural realm we live in. It takes prayer and sometimes fasting to reveal the spiritual through our clay vessels and into the world to transform it. And I myself am insufficient oftentimes distracted and exhausted, fussy and irritable unwilling to put in the work. We’re all human and whipping ourselves continually isn’t helpful.

Look how many thousands of years it took God to bring to fruition the Promise of His Seed, Christ. This life is no joke. And yet we wrestle with all manner of difficult obstacles from emotional stress to psychological and genetic addictions to personality quirks then sin on top of that and the fire of Hell to top it all off. God knows this. He understands our struggle through Christ.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in every respect as we are, but without sinning.

Hebrews 4.15

There is no mistake, no stumble, no wrong, no temptation, no heartbreak that the Lord does not understand or cannot empathize with concerning the children of man. None. We are not alone in our quest for His goodness, to see His goodness in the land of the living, in the land of our own lives, in our hearts and our thoughts. He knows and still forgives, without a moment’s notice.

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Hebrew 8.12

The Holy Spirit is a Helper Not a Punisher; He is the Feminine Aspect of God the Father

God is renewal, He is life. Nothing for us as His people ever ends in death and darkness. Though these things are experienced commonly by us all, He will not suffer death to hold us, He will pull us out of all the darkness even if it is our own doing. That’s what the Cross is all about. We are too weak to save ourselves so God comes to us, as He always will, and rescues us from our wretched fallen state and washes us by His word, clothes us honorably in white clean robes and invites us to the seat at the side of Christ our Redeemer. He will never forsake us and He makes it clear time and time again He means what He says,

No one cared enough for you to do even one of these things out of compassion for you. Instead, you were thrown out into the open field, because you were despised on the day of your birth. Then I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, ‘Live!’ There I said to you, ‘Live!’ I made you thrive like a plant of the field. Ezekiel 16.5-7

Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 7.13-14

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. I will build you up again, and you, Virgin Israel, will be rebuilt. Again you will take up your timbrels and go out to dance with the joyful.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8.38-39

May your soul be at peace, may God bring His peace into every aspect of your life. Rest in Him and knowing that no one is ever so far gone that His arm is not able to reach you and save you.

“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:” Isaiah 59.1

He knows our troubles, He hears our cries. May we in turn hear His heart and do His will upon the earth to bring to fruition His Kingdom among the children of man.

In Pursuit of God’s Ideal Church

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Kingdom of GodLeave a comment

What Was God’s Original Idea?

As a followup to last week’s post I wanted to explore how God speaks of His Church in scripture and how different that Church is from the church concept of today. This concept, in my opinion, having been offered even during the times of Acts. The serpent was there in the garden, there’s always a serpent in the garden. So while God is building His Church, satan is feverishly creating the copy-cat to mimic God’s original idea and true vision.

The Church is The Body, Living and Organic

First of all, I’ve mentioned various times the scriptures indicating that no constructed building is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. But in fact, we are the temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells. (1 Corinthians 3:16) I’ve also shown that no man will build God’s Church, but that He will write His laws on our hearts, not in ritual form and formality that humans undertake as religion.

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:

“This is the covenant I will make with them
    after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
    and I will write them on their minds.”

Hebrews 10.15-16

God is not Religion. He is a living being, the Holy Spirit is a Person, and Christ is the risen living King, the Son of God. His word is living and active. We aren’t dealing with a dead letter. So then, if He writes the living word on our hearts, in our souls, that living word transforms us and we become the Church. We don’t travel to church. Alas, everywhere we go the Church goes with us because the Spirit indwells our physical bodies.

In reality, we just can’t assimilate this so we outsource it to a building, push it away, we reason that God is in that church at the corner of Rose and High Street. Because if He is in me……what does that mean for how I act and think, for how I carry Him within?

Stealing the Basketball

Now if the Church then is within my heart and all believer’s hearts, and God dwells within me so that I am His temple, then there is no more separation. And this, in fact, is why Christ manifested, to rejoin, to reconcile God with man. Sin no longer reigns in our bodies but Christ has redeemed us and since we are now cleansed and have the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21), the Holy Spirit indwells us, not a physical temple constructed by the hands of men. Instead, we are the living, organic temple of God. We have His power not unlike how Christ had His power:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

John 14.12

Which is easier to take from me? The basketball I’m bouncing in my mind, or the basketball I’m bouncing in this third dimensional space? Do you think the devil was going to let ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’ just spread without any bounds? He had to contain what Christ unleashed on the Cross, to seize it and bring it back under his control. He’s referred to as the Prince of the Air. He couldn’t offer Jesus all the glory of the world and its riches if he didn’t have the ability to turn them over.

So he stole God’s original idea and brought it back into this world as a dead building. One which he could easily control if need be, just look into the life of Bonhoeffer and you’ll understand. Even during Covid lockdowns we saw how easily it was to close the doors on the physical church buildings and keep the Body separated. Let’s face it, it is easier to take a physical thing from someone than a deeply held thought or belief. And so we have Satan’s Cuckoo Chick in God’s Nest.

God’s Heart for the Poor

I just finished reading a book call God’s Heart for the Poor by Philippa Stroud. I had the privilege of hearing her and other prominent voices speak earlier this year at an ARC conference in London. The Spirit of God was present when she spoke, it’s like a reflection that is familiar, (My sheep hear My voice) and so I wanted to know more.

There are books that teach us and encourage us, books that challenge us, and books that wreck us. For me, this book was one of the most difficult I’ve read, not in the arrangement of words, but because it places you in the uncomfortable seat of the person who’s given up their life to God in the service of others. A surrendering of the will to something more important: God’s heart for the human race He created.

I wish I could describe it more poetically but it’s simply too difficult. To peer into this radical abandonment and surrender of ourselves in service to others is terrifying. The book lays out what the Church should be doing if we want to emulate Christ in the earth. It troubles me, convicts me and moves me to tears.

This book for me describes what God’s original ideal for the Church truly is. It’s not flashy and pretentious. Nor is it filled with glorious art and architecture or beautiful stained-glass. Its wardrobe isn’t the finest of garments with golden goblets shiny and clean on the outside. On the contrary, it’s what God’s glorious Church should be; helping those on the fringes of life, alcoholics, drug addicts, violent individuals, unkempt and often using foul language – the uncomfortableness of it all! This book wrecked me. What Stroud documented was the emulation of Christ, of our pursuit of God’s original ideal Church:

We started regular Friday night outreach meetings that October, and soon forty or so needy people crammed the kitchen at Clarendon Street – sprawled on the work surfaces, anywhere. Many were drunk, but they’d come to meet with God. We’d worship, do some teaching and pray for them. It proved an exciting place to be because God showed up. Excerpt pg. 48-49

David and I believe very strongly that caring for the poor has to be the responsibility of the local expression of the body of Christ. A strong dynamic comes into play when a local church works with the poor, because God longs for the disadvantaged to become radical disciples of Jesus. That involves being built into His body – being knitted together with those who love him. He longs for churches full of people who were once broken, whom he has redeemed and restored and who go on to bring his restoration to others. pg. 177

Is This Not What Jesus Did?

Jesus didn’t clothe Himself in the finest of garments expecting to be pampered, revered, and kept separate from the people. He didn’t show up day after day to put on rituals and formalities. He didn’t expect everything to be strictly ordered with no room or invitation to the Holy Spirit to have communion with His people. Many churches today set the whole schedule out in stagnant repeatable rituals. Why? Because it’s comfortable! It’s calm, peaceful and predictable. Dignified, like God is…..right? The Church is clean and polished and ordered, that’s God’s original idea for His Body in the earth, right?

I’m wrecked…

Everyday life proved chaotic. Disturbed residents often tried to damage or kill themselves, which is why we took all the locks off the toilet doors. (Live-in staff learnt to sing or pray loudly, or else developed bowel problems!) One night a female resident with psychiatric problems set herself alight in the garden. Emma and a couple of other female helpers managed to put out the flames and to get her back into the kitchen, where she started kicking the vegetable rack and throwing tables and chairs about. The whole house came running as the three of them tried to restrain her. pg 55

‘Philippa, get over here now, Gail’s in the office, drunk. She’s going to get me the sack!’ I bundled Gail into my car and set off for the Accident and Emergency, just in case she’d taken an overdose as well as too much alcohol. A few yards down the road she threw up inside the car. pg 122

God is Challenging, He is Relentless for His Church, for His People and for the Lost of This World

I have not read a more uncomfortable book, tears in my eyes knowing we have so much to do and we’ve shielded ourselves in rock solid ways against this kind of work, the work Jesus was actually doing among the people, not sitting quietly in a church pew enjoying the air conditioned sanctuary and our thoughts on lunch or whatever else we’d rather be doing.

My heart is broken, for the Church, for my own insufficiencies, our lack as a whole to come together and actual do what Christ instructed us to do. This is why I am angry, why my passion and zeal for God is more than I can manage. Maybe it’s what God is going to do to all His people until we stop what we are doing, all the empty vanities of what we call church, and listen to what the Holy Sprit is speaking to our hearts, however uncomfortable it makes us.

This book demonstrates the work that defines The Kingdom of God in the earth. This is only one aspect of what Christ was speaking of, but it is a most difficult one to bear. Not everyone is called to this type of work. Perhaps this call is only for a season, but it is necessary and one to be highly esteemed and admired.

Satan’s Cuckoo Chick in God’s Nest

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Kingdom of GodLeave a comment

My Zeal for the Kingdom of God

This is raw, I’m going to warn you. I keep saying I have a whip to weave – and I try, I do – but this subject matter burns me from the inside and the outside. I’m frightened by it. It’s difficult to face head-on, I get so raw and angry. Let’s talk about the Cuckoo chick in God’s nest.

To sit down and focus on this treacherous trick of the devil day-in and day-out in order to birth a book revealing the truth (that no one wants to hear), is utter misery. Ultimately, there’s no running to hide from God to get away from what He has tasked me with. Run from responsibility and there will be a whale waiting to escort you to Hell. Furthermore, that whale will have a nice crispy treat if you’ve also managed to get torched by the fiery dragon on your heels which you can’t manage to shake.

Enter: my internal landscape of torment. I told you, it’s going to be raw…

Things That Keep Me Up At Night

There are 46,876 Southern Baptists church buildings in the United States.

Now compare that with 43,477 McDonald’s restaurants GLOBALLY. Let us sit in that lukewarm stew for a moment…

Now, shall we squeeze those statistics through some abstract financial math for the Kingdom of God?

It is estimated that a church with just 50 members and a pastor costs around $85,000 annually to maintain.

Hence, we have 46,876 manmade church constructs at $85,000 annual running costs…

That’s $3,984,460,000 ANNUALLY. And that’s just the SBC.

And the Catholic church? Try this number on for size: Catholic parishes operate on a budget of between $100,000 to $1 million per year. (Urban parishes may face higher costs for utilities, property taxes, and potentially staff salaries, while rural parishes may have lower costs in these areas)…..

Gotta clothe the vicar in the finest attire and accoutrements~

[Pro tip: if the previous statement angers you it is because your identity is wrapped up in a manmade concept of who God is and how one should defend a manmade idea of worship. You’ve been duped.]

Here’s the whole of Christianity’s sacrifice to their structural idols:

“Christian churches in the US spend approximately $84 billion annually on operational costs, including staff, facilities, and programs.”

-ChurchTrac The State of Church Giving: Trends and Statistics [2025]

The Cuckoo Chick in God’s Nest

Church buildings have become devouring monsters with every brick and ritual requiring a scandalous sacrifice of mammon. They are the imposter cuckoo that demands resources from and enslaves God’s children. Satan has tricked God’s servants to feed a lie and deprive His children of resources, kicking widows, the hungry and the broken out of His nest. Tell me again how God’s original idea was to build a bunch of buildings, divide them by denomination and then fill them with people who identity more with the denomination than with Christ?

I’ll wait………………….

Did God not instead show us how to identify with Christ, grow into His stature and build a Kingdom to save the lost, feed the hungry and take care of widows?

Instead we use the latter to justify our pride in the former.

Did Jesus Christ travel from place to place building temples in His name?

We are full of our own will which blinds us to the truth. The problem is the fundamental hazard of attaching our identity to anything outside the human being. Because remember, we are formed in His image, given the mind of Christ, clothed in His garment and the Holy Spirit dwells within us. If we mistakenly attach our identity to anything outside of ourselves, we become divided and fall out of union with the Body of Christ.

But the devil will tell you that the Body of Christ IS religion. That’s a lie. He’ll also tell you that Jesus is Christianity. That’s a lie also.

The Folly of Placing Our Identity in Manmade Constructs

Christianity seemingly worships itself, the number of buildings it can build, and who can take the most pride in their architecture.

God is going to judge this.

“God who made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of Heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.”

“Do you not know, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit.”

The marker of success in the Kingdom of God is not the recruitment of individuals into a religious ideology or denominational church. God does not recognize religious institutions, ideologies or denominational substructures. We need to realize and accept how prone we are to identify more with these secondary garments than with Jesus Christ alone, otherwise we will never grow into the fulness of the stature of Christ. We are encased in a shell we can’t see, (or perhaps, more to the point, blinded by it) obscuring our understanding of how it limits the Body of Christ.

Christ is not Divided

God isn’t a denomination. People choose denominations that have fashioned God in a way that fits into their life, their personality and attitudes. The binding of identity to religion tears everything else apart because the Body of Christ is not a particular church construct, or one specific denomination or a set of manmade formalities. It only causes rupture of the fabric of being – we are made in God’s image, not man’s image of God. Please, for the love of God, understand this~

People form denominations. God does not. And all churches are denominations because they all divide.

Christ established The Kingdom of God on earth, not church buildings. God is not religion, and until we break free from this misconception of who He is we will never understand who we are and who Christ said we could become in Him. We must grow into the stature of Christ, not the stature of a manmade church doctrine. This also prevents us as believers from doing what Christ instructed us to do – all those greater things He mentioned. We now have the Holy Spirit within us.

Yes, God in you, the hope of glory.

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1.27

Satan will stop at nothing to kill the spread of this knowledge and keep it from being embodied and acted upon by the children of God. He’ll even create and drop an imposter cuckoo in God’s nest and deceive anyone who isn’t paying attention to what they are identifying with and feeding.

But, God’s word never falls to the earth unproductive, dear children of God. On the contrary:

My word that comes from my mouth will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.

Isaiah 55.11

God’s getting ready to show the world that victory runs to meet His every step~

Following the Holy Spirit

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Bread & Butter MorselsLeave a comment

Learning the Way of the Spirit

Countless books have been written on the subject of following the Spirit of God. We are constantly trying to figure out if we are hearing from Him, if the light we are following is the Holy Spirit or some other spirit, if it is just our own whims that pull us around, and whether we’ve correctly chosen the path of Life and not Death.

It’s all rather overwhelming. Add to that the fact that Satan is a lying deceiver, can masquerade as an angel of light to distort our perceptions, steal our peace and blind us, and very quickly the signal can get dicey. Then we have our own carnal desires to content with. Add all this up and we’ve got the elements of a boundless Lord of the Rings style war on our hands that all starts in the mind and if not conquered there, manifests outwardly potentially creating a lot of chaos.

The Battlefield of the Mind

If we look at all of these crazy winds blowing around us we can easily get distracted and frightened. What’s worse, the devil can bring every good (that’s right, good) opportunity to our doorstep and keep us so busy with doing good things that we end up off our purpose in God. Remember, even Paul was forbidden to enter Asia with the gospel of Christ. And that was a good intention, even a commandment of Christ to go into all the world and preach the good news.

Had Paul not been open and receptive to the voice of the Spirit, he would have continued on his journey in the wrong direction.

The Devil Masquerades as an Angel of Light

Satan tries to deceive us constantly and keep our understanding of spiritual matters cloaked in darkness. He’ll even try to pluck up truths we’ve come to rely upon. (Luke 8.12) He mimics Christ’s light in order to sway humans off the path of Life. This fake light can come in any number of shapes and sizes and he will fit these wares according to our human nature: distractions, busyness, urgency, good deeds (yes, even those), sin itself, glory from man, praise, wealth, spiritual enlightenment (New Age, Eastern Religions) the list goes on and on.

What makes it difficult is that even though some of these things appear worthwhile endeavors, Satan can twist them into actual traps which if acted upon will snare us and cease our journey forward.

All things require balance and proving.

Sin Does Not Lead to Growth

This is one key to knowing the path of Life and if you’re following the Spirit: are you growing in Christ? Are you getting spiritually fed and progressing in your knowledge with God? When you apply what you’re learning from a particular individual, principle or revelation, is your life getting better and are you improving as a whole? Then this is God.

Because sin cannot produce life or truth. It might show up as something glorious but in a very short time the spirit behind it will reveal itself because it lacks the capability to improve you. Sin binds, is laden with burdens, and confuses our direction. This could take a few months to determine, although the more discerning you are and the more you read the word of God the quicker you’ll realize it.

Look for growth and life. Whatever isn’t producing these results for you, it could be a snare. Even good things can be twisted by satan, look at what he does continually with the word of God. So be mindful that he’ll take something good and try to corrupt it. Know who you are in Christ and know God’s word. Jesus never had a conversation with the devil, He simply told him what to do: get behind Me!

The Key to Know Which Light is the Holy Spirit

When we are plotting our way forward having correctly placed the Kingdom of God as first priority, we can rest assured we are walking the path of Life. We may need to recalibrate and realign, but that is to be expected. The key is putting Him first. If we put anything else at the top, even good deeds in the first position above God, then the very deeds themselves become our idols.

If we follow the Spirit then the good works follow us and the foundation of the hierarchy is properly set. In the midst of the hierarchy, other people show up with whom we get to share the journey; some for extended periods of time, some for only a brief moment. These individuals can bring us breakthrough, profound truth and help us on our way. And that’s as it should be. We are the Body of Christ and we cannot go without each other, or divide from each other. And it is God who will refine His Body, purify His Bride and present Her to Himself. (Eph 5.25-27)

All will go together whether at arms length or separated by lands and oceans. We advance together upon the earth. There is no distance in the Spirit. If we are in the Spirit we are together. Paul made this clear as well.

Take Confidence in a Properly Aligned Hierarchy of Worship

Sometimes we find ourselves following and learning from an individual or even a particular church organization and they change their direction in a way that doesn’t line up with God or the word. But because we haven’t placed the individual(s) at the top of our hierarchy, (thus replacing God and our identity with an idol), we aren’t following the individual but following the Holy Spirit. This shields us from dismay and possible derailment of our progress in God. Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ, right – this equips us with all the wisdom we need: when they stop following biblical truth, stop following them.

Now we are free to learn, to move and have our being without the fear of losing who we are in Christ. Always identify with Him first, then explore as you feel led. The Israelites followed Moses into redemption as Moses followed God.

And sometimes following God sets you against the direction of the crowds, and that’s okay. You know the story of Gideon’s Army, right? God is not mainstream. Understand this. We are in the worldly system, not of it.

I fear for those in the Body of Christ who identify more with religious formalities, religious figures, online influencers or anything at all more than they identify with Christ. This is the act of adding garments over or under the garment of Christ and shadows idolatry. (But that’s another post, perhaps forthcoming.)

Be Aware of the Spiritual Realm and Test the Spirits

God will prove our connections. I’ve said this before – if we choose our own companions without listening for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we can be led astray. He will choose and then prove those who will go with us in our journey. Then God will anoint them – which is a seal, an understanding of the purpose. You won’t be pulled in opposite directions.

Remember the solemn Council of Elrond which determined the Company of the Ring Bearer in LOTR? According to lore that meeting took 70 days before reaching an accord among them. It was as much an intellectual endeavor as it was spiritual and emotional exploration and battle. Seventy days, and that was a fictional accord. We take less time making decisions about the directions of our lives in God than we do what movie we’re going to watch after dinner tonight.

Unity Brings the Body Together Even When Separated

There are times when we go separate ways, but it is to fulfill the ultimate purpose of God which should be in our hearts the same and it should unify us both now and in the future. Times and seasons are important on the earth, when God says, ‘Not yet,’ it doesn’t mean never. It just means the time isn’t right today. So be vigilant and don’t let satan pluck up your destiny, or compel you forward and over the edge.

The devil uses time to talk you out of what is yours. ~Christian Harfouche

Be aware; satan is always roaming about like a lion seeking whom he may devour. Remember the rift between Paul and Barnabas concerning John Mark? It split Paul and Barnabas. I’m not sure who was right, but if Paul was the leader, Barnabas should have acquiesced. If Paul wanted Mark to follow, then Barnabas should have conceded his point. In this case it was the reverse, and Barnabas still should have followed Paul’s instruction which would have been leaving Mark behind for this particular trip.

Our Life is a Walk of Faith

If we are following God then everything God has for us we will encounter along that divine path. We will miss nothing. And all things God gives to us as we walk this path will be good. We just can’t replace Him with any of it. We can’t want anything God gives us more than we want Him. This is how we plot our way correctly.

Remember, have confidence in God’s choices for your life. Not today doesn’t mean never. Learn to rest in His timing, knowing that our timing – as limited creatures – is skewed because we cannot see all things at once. Placing our lives in His hands, an all-knowing all-seeing God gives us ultimate advantage against all the devil’s wiles.

“The basis of the highest form of faith is the decision to accept the proposition that whatever happens, if you live in truth, is by definition the best thing that can possibly happen despite your inability as a consequence of your limitations to have the wisdom to see that. That is a statement of faith, because there is no way of demonstrating the validity of that proposition before enacting the hypothesis. You have to commit to it.”

Jordan Peterson

Have a wonder-filled week and may you burn brightly for the Kingdom of God~

Magical iMac Mushrooms

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Unconventional ThinkingLeave a comment

A Magical Wonderland

When I was 27 I bought my first computer. That was the year 2000. It was the era of the Apple relaunch and I can remember the first time I walked into our local CompUSA and discovered an array of stunning, colorful computers in the back corner of the store. A wonderland of screens and cases and keyboards all glowing and calling my name from some otherworldly realm. The iMac was a magical mushroom no one had ever seen before and it offered a new experience: an art exhibit in the middle of a boring, techbox store.

I’d never seen anything like it. No one had. I can’t remember now how many visits to that store I made but I found myself walking through the enchanted wonderland of Steve Job’s creations and pining away. A set of Harman Kardon speakers encased in clear plastic sci-fi bubbles came with the package. Works of art and I thought, ‘I’ll have those one day.’ (Fast forward twelve full years, and I did.)

These plastic and metal artworks presented a conundrum for me, one that I couldn’t overcome in the end. See, I’m practical, always weighing the benefits of a thing with its aesthetic. I’d ask the tech guys at work about how compatible iMacs were with PC’s and they’d always shake their head and instruct me to ‘do the right thing‘ and buy the PC. They were right because at that time hardly any external software came with the iMac. Nothing was compatible and there was no such thing as Microsoft Word for iMac computers. Even email formats were wonky when sent from iMac users.

Practicality When a Mushroom Beckons

I barely had the money to buy any computer at all, much less two. So one had to go. You can guess which one since I’m still here, 25 years in the future reminiscing about a visionary’s creation that was so stunning it captured the imagination of the individual, and then the world. There has been nothing like it since and even if there was, it would never satisfy within me that first encounter with a glowing mushroom called iMac that I’d never seen or experienced before. It was magical.

I read my credit card off to the Dell salesman over the phone and within a couple of weeks, I had a brand new flat screen Dell PC sitting in my living room. It weighed five tons, was black and gray plastic and came with a full surround sound system including a subwoofer. Nothing about it glowed. The speakers weren’t transparent, artsy or aesthetically pleasing, none of it was, but it worked and its utilitarian features helped me to create plenty of interesting music and writings. I remember the day, some six years later, my friend agreed to help me drag that flatscreen monitor to the curb for the garbage pickup, complaining the task broke his back. I giggled, apologized and thanked him, well aware it weighed five tons.

Regret Doesn’t Always Mean Mistake

To this day, if I ask myself seriously, would I go back and buy the Mac instead, my decision would be the same. Some things simply aren’t usable to everyone, and to me I was not tech savvy enough to navigate different operating systems. The only way I would have also procured the iMac is if I’d had the means to acquire both. Then I would have taken my chances on the Mac knowing I could buy the PC if I found beauty to be less utilitarian than I’d hoped.

I’m practical. And I’m not upset about it. In fact, it’s one of the few strengths I have that has kept me balanced in life. There’s nothing quite like being raised by an artistic, mad, bohemian mother. A beautiful but broken genius whom my father balanced to a great degree. I have enough of his pragmatism to navigate through life steadily and enough of God’s love to just skirt the edges of catastrophe.

The Practical and The Unknown

There will never be another moment like those few months in the year 2000 when I teetered on the fence of aesthetics verses practicality – that regretful memory, the colors, the awe of artistic vision suspended forever perhaps in my mind like a beautiful wonderland that was just out of reach. Even if the exact same computer relaunched today, and even if I bought one I doubt it would satiate the void which was the result of a decision to walk the path of convention as opposed to novelty.

Sounds silly, but memory isn’t always the best of navigation devices. Nostalgia is deadly.

To look back now those iMac computers look dated, out of touch and I laugh at myself silently about it. How could something that seems so insignificant now still be part of my memory bank?

Who knows to this day how much my practical decision cost me. Or how much it saved me. Perhaps it’s trivial enough that it really doesn’t even matter. Balance, I suppose, matters most. There’s nothing like conventional to kill the spirit of creation; and there’s nothing like the unconventional to exact change in the world.

An Eternal Flame is a Controlled Burn

The world and the individual then needs both the chaos of creation and the practicality of convention – a controlled burn – in order to balance the curiosities of life and the utility of daily living. This balance plays out over the longest length of time. I might venture to say that the most unconventional decisions could actually be the best direction to take if balanced with reason.

Maybe all of this is the meaning that wraps itself into and throughout our lifetime here on earth, where the most important decisions are sometimes the quietest; the ones least understood because their results are laid up in heavenly treasures which are yet unseen from this side of eternity.

The Dance Of Gods and Mortals

On By Ashley GatewoodIn Kingdom of GodLeave a comment

A Formulaic Tradition: Sterile, Barren

We keep that which bothers us at a comfortable distance. We hold it out in front, just shy of our inner world so that we might familiarize ourselves with it and avoid entanglement, never having to reconcile ourselves with the unknown. Being familiar with a person or event and coming to a deeper revelation of it cannot be the same process. That deeper state of communion is just beyond the precipice, that event horizon of which mortals define as death. We fear death like we fear the idea of a blackhole. Who dares contend with a force that rips us apart upon crossing its threshold and pulls us into a cold emptiness that harbors infinite unknowns?

“For you will not abandon my soul to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.”

Psalm 16:10

This Mortal Cloak is Heavy, the Mind Unable to Update

We fear being lost in the dark, not because we fear darkness but because we fear death. We don’t regard ourselves as anything beyond earthen vessels which wrap around us like cloaks, cumbersome and hard to manage. Gravity itself mocks us. Yet Jesus defied gravity more than once, both as a mortal and an immortal. Not even the Olympians had the same power, as they were never human, fragile, or mortal.

They cannot take up their life again because they have no life to take up.

There is power in death. There is yet more power in the raising of the dead, for to be Immortal is one thing, but to be an Immortal Biological is another altogether. We have all the more power through death as a rite of passage, if we are indeed in Christ:

“No one takes My Life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

John 10.18

Was Hesiod Envisioning Merely Fictional Entities?

I’m of the notion that the writings of Hesiod may not have originated in his imagination only. gods of Greek Mythology are not so mythological as they are other worldly angelic beings pulled down with a swipe of a dragon’s tail. In our mortal bodies we are at a great disadvantage to these principalities and powers of the air, angelic hierarchies full of evil and resentment of humans, a murderous regard. For they, being immortals only, have no right to the earth and yet lust for it endlessly, the demonic so aghast in their current state of dry emptiness that they will inhabit even swine to relieve their discomforted souls. The earth is biological, and the gods have no rights to its riches:

But your dead will live, LORD; their bodies will rise— let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy— your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.

Isaiah 26.19

Gods and Mortals Dance Along the Event Horizon

This time on earth is of importance to us not because it is short but because we are in the middle of a dawning, a portal from one world to another, a suspended state of which being an integrated part can affect and transform the entire bridge, to a far greater degree than we can possibly imagine as mere mortals.

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.

Daniel 12.2

Life isn’t about this short time span we understand as mortals here on earth though with all diligence we must burn brightly and accomplish the purpose of heaven while we are here. Our time is about living out a redemptive process both on an individual level and a broader level pointing to the fulness of the redemption of mankind. We think we have big ideas and strain our intelligence to accomplish that which challenges us. Think about the idea God had.

“Let Us make man in Our image”

God’s plan was nearly abandoned twice having repented to Noah and again to Moses that He had created us. But He remained faithful to Himself, faithful to us, and faithful to a plan so challenging it continues today, taking thousands of years to accomplish. Nothing in the millions of years prior to us has been quite so challenging, or so it would seem to me; not the angels, not the immortals, not the Titans or Olympians…nothing. Though God did lament the fall of Lucifer momentarily – He then planned Mankind to show that love indeed can overcome the impossible – because Lucifer couldn’t believe it to be true.

Satan’s tomb is sealed, even as he roams the earth the judgement itself binds him, breathing down his neck and nipping at his feet. Our tomb, however, is wide open, a rite of passage into immortality and love, for Jesus is the Resurrection Life and Love for all eternity to those who choose Him.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

John 11.25-26

Elohim could just as easily have declared: Let the dance of Gods and Mortals commence~

Let’s not let our Creator down, and let us prove that dragon wrong in all his rebellious ways: Love does conquer all, even Death.