When I was four years old, I should have died. I didn’t know this until I was nearly twenty, when a prophet looked at me and said, ‘You shouldn’t be here. He’s got plans for you. Did you almost die when you were young?’ I was clueless. My mother later told me that indeed, I almost died.
At four, I came down with something the doctors couldn’t diagnose. I was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. Mom said they were scouring over medical books and couldn’t figure it out. My temperature would not come down.
My Mother’s Vision
One afternoon my mother fell asleep on the couch in my hospital room and had a vision. She woke up and saw Jesus standing there in the room. She was holding me in her arms and said to Him, ‘If you save her, I’ll give her to you.’ He reached out His arms and she placed me in them.
Then she woke up.
She saw the nurse hovering over my bed reading the thermometer, to which she exclaimed, ‘Oh my! Her fever broke.’ Mom knew exactly what had happened.
And so my stairway to heaven was postponed.
Where There Should Be A Vacuum, I Am There
I shouldn’t be here. I think about that sometimes. Every purchase I make, that money would not otherwise have been exchanged. Everywhere I go….I’m affecting the space around me that otherwise wouldn’t be affected. Sometimes it’s almost like space itself is aware of that fact, that it shouldn’t be experiencing my presence at all. It’s an odd feeling.
I think of what Christ said on two occasions, once when He had descended from the Mount of Transfiguration:
“How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you?
Matthew 17.17
It’s that how long must I be with you that resonates with me. If even God couldn’t stand the world, how much more us? The Devil is the Prince of the Air, he stole our dominion from us in the garden. That’s why the whole world (the worldly system) is under his sway and sin is rampant and the elect are grieved more and more in these end times. If you are a sinner, well isn’t that nice? You can do whatever you like, not thinking at all about the future – con who you like, suckers; betray to gain the win; revel in pleasures and luxury, even if it’s in your pride; your father is the Prince of your world. The worldly sky is the limit.
Oh sure, your eternal life is gone, vaporized and you certainly will suffer the Second Death, but while you’re here now, indulge!
And of course we as children of God understand the significance and deadly end of this way of life. But it does make it more difficult to bear up under the sufferings of this world, even if our life is like a blade of grass.
The Sacrifice
We give until there’s nothing left to give. The vessel of the self is broken and we pour out our lives to the lost in service to God. And we do not take anything for it. Instead we lay up treasures in heaven where moth cannot destroy and thieves cannot steal. And the rich laugh and mock us for it. The mob is dead set on pushing us over the cliff because they cannot stand the truth of our words we speak. Our very existence fills them with rage, madness, and the devil enters them to bring about our demise.
And here we are like sheep in the darkest of forests, surrounded by devilish liars, eyes glowing bearing their sharp teeth, dressed in garments of faux godliness. Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
The other thing Jesus said was in private, to His closest friends:
“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished.”
Luke 12.49-51
In other words, for the fire to be kindled, Christ had to die on the Cross. He was ready for His life to be already over. He admits it. That’s how great His distress was about it all. He sweat blood in the garden, then submitted to God, ‘Not my will but Thine be done.’
Not By a Long Shot
We hope we are so good. But no. We fight, we undermine, we are determined to have our way even at the expense of someone else’s life – as long as we win and save our pride. And then we call ourselves good. When what we should do is repent and let go of our selfish wants.
Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it’s the Lord’s purpose that will prevail.
A Lamentation
I would like to make the case that after fifty years of being here in the earth – beyond what I was originally allotted – I think I should be free to do as I wish now. Have I not given fifty more years than would otherwise have been required of me? And if anyone says, you should be thankful, I’d hearken back to those two verses from Christ….even He was ready to get the heck out of here as soon as possible.
Alas, if we back up just a few verses, my fate is sealed: To whom much is given, much is required. And to the one who knows what to do and does not do it, they will be beaten with more blows.
And I don’t feel bad about any of this as Jeremiah was a much better lamenter than I.
His lamentation was so good he even got acknowledged with his Book being included in the Bible. I don’t have a fraction of the anointing or talent. I’m just out here in the world being where I was not otherwise intended to be.
And so goes my extended, strange, not supposed to be here lamentation of life.
I recently returned from a trip to Boston. I love big cities. They are always awake and always open for business. I also like the way of living far more than small town – each has its advantages I suppose – one offering a slower pace to life and one engaging and always beckoning attention and involvement.
I never clocked less than 10K steps a day while in Boston, and that’s without any extra dedicated time. In small towns, there’s no great possibility of walking or biking. Stores and destinations are just too far apart. In many instances, biking and driving took the same amount of time in Boston. Even in small ‘cities’ like Lexington, there is no decent public transportation that runs frequently enough without wasting an hour and a half waiting at bus terminals. A fifteen minute car drive is the only alternative.
We’re walking through the MIT tunnels to catch the rail to a 5K, not mine, just to be clear.
I was talking with a friend up there who stated it quite perfectly. He said that there’s an energy you can feel when walking the city. You always have other people bustling about, things are happening like deliveries, events, shows, students, other runners or cyclists on the city streets with you no matter the time of day. But to walk to a friends house in a suburb of a small town, all the houses shut up, curtains drawn, lawns are the same, row after row – it’s just an excruciatingly boring walk.
It’s true!
I do my best to walk daily – which I have to make time and drive to the park. But I have to work much harder to get 10K steps whereas the city seems to provide ample opportunity for healthy living without even trying.
Anyway, I guess I want too much just in general. Maybe we all do. We want everything that is good about all we’ve experienced combined for a perfect life. It’s just not going to happen.
I daydream about living in a big city. Who daydreams about something so mundane? Maybe I’m seeing a vision, this happens to me sometimes. Will have to pay more attention to these daydreams.
Motivators
I have to consider why something is being done, why I’m taking a particular action. Shouldn’t we all consider why we are doing certain things in our life? Jesus said to lay up treasures for ourselves in Heaven because the treasures of this world rot and disintegrate and pass away. Entropy. Even ideas that seem to propagate suffer deterioration if they aren’t of any eternal value.
I’ve noticed how much the wrong ideas about God propagate on social media. People who are Christians saying that what makes a shepherd inadequate is not preaching the goodness of a particular political party to their congregations. In other words, not using a position given by God to push your own political agenda is unacceptable as a Christian Pastor. Like, what kind of Hell-talk is this? Who is embodying the essence of the great Accuser of the Brethren here?
How is it that Christian influencers are falling into this treacherous language against Christ?
And then, as if just speaking it isn’t treacherous enough, we have loads of ‘avatars’ liking the post, not because they are Christians necessarily, but because their agenda lines up with the poster’s comment.
These Christians influencers will be held accountable.
Anything we say – especially if we have followers on a massive level – will be solely our responsibility come the Judgement. ‘But someone else taught me that!’ This argument, my friend, will hold no water with God almighty. He has already warned us, ‘My people perish for lack of knowledge.’ This is why I am so adamant, esp with those God has laid on my heart, in correcting when someone is going down the wrong path. I care for them AND I care for all those children of God they are leading astray. I say children because they may be the few who are exempt, though still they will perish at the hands of ill-informed leaders, if they are never correct and taught proper biblical truth.
This is why leaders will be judged with far more weight than the children they are leading and influencing.
Hence this warning given: ‘Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.’
Now we just as easily can put ‘influencers’ in place of teachers. Same thing, same process of passing along the wrong information about God in this example. Do I know everything? Of course not! Which is why I’m grateful (though maybe at first quite irritated) when I get corrected. Correction, admonishment, saves our lives!
Now that alone keeps me from stepping out as much as I might be, it’s a grave thing to have great influence and be dead wrong about something so grave as life and death of a person’s soul and body. That’s my issue I must overcome.
The Wicked Won’t Win, Even Though Now They Appear To Prosper
The wicked shall not prosper. There’s a verse that admonishes, ‘do not envy the prosperity of the wicked.’ And it’s easy to do that. This life on earth has many interesting and pleasurable things we could use our vessels to indulge in, yet this assuredly brings death. God knows the human’s psychological makeup better than anyone or anything. Even Satan understands human psychology better than humans do, duh..
Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37.1-3
Everywhere I look anti-Christ organizations, corpse-porations and blasphemous God-haters seem to garner praise, financial gain and worldly clout. But like, who wants that kind of ROI?
Death of self would be our aim today, in this world of indulgent pleasures, including dopamine kicks-and-giggles that social media tends to deliver to our starving central nervous receptors. Sometimes I wonder if Christians aren’t saying these ridiculous things because they believe the more social media likes and praise they garner means somehow they are doing the right thing and are approved of God.
My God, people! This is such a trap. All of this misdirection must burn away. Self-centered ambitions must burn away. I know, far easier said than done – and I don’t have thousands of followers…God help me if I ever do. I might run away, which would result in zero benefit to anyone.
And there are always whales at-the-ready for servants of God who run….fantastic…
It’s a problem of space and time for me, I think. It’s a problem of losing. Losing things. And I hate losing things. I hate losing time and options. I need an eternal view, not a here-and-now view. Many who are smarter than I, keep correcting my thought on this: I must narrow my path which sacrifices all other paths I could walk and proceed with all focus in one direction. This is excruciating for me even though I know that to do otherwise just keeps the wheels spinning unproductively.
Everyday Witnesses Through Their Gifts
The Lord has been bringing unique individuals to my attention. People I would never find in the circle of interests I have, and these people are full-on dedicated to the work of God’s kingdom here on the earth. They aren’t formally in the ministry at all, they are chefs, or skateboarders, or comedians – all manner of professions but they never miss a beat to talk about God during an interview about their chosen profession or craft. It’s a beautiful thing to see.
And quite frankly, they speak with much more profound depth and authority about God than those who are in positions of prestige or power within the church (noun, place) today. I became disillusioned about the structure of church organizations and institutions since the mid-2000s.
Indeed, we all wrestle with God at some point.
God always calls the Gideon, or the David, or the Esther when they are known by few and obscure. I think this is amazing and I love to watch it unfold in a life; how the seemingly smallest is made the greatest among us, not by their own hand of power, but by offering all their strengths to God to use for His glory.
This kind of wrestling is among the most difficult because it is our weaknesses, the self, the ego, the intellect like Leviathans pushing forward within us for control when, perhaps one might say, the hero overcomes them to submit his or her vessel with all its inadequacies to the will of God, as Jesus did. It’s nothing short of miraculous. Indeed, without the Spirit of God, we could not possibly do it. Faith is a powerful thing when it’s witnessed working through an individuals life.
I’m seeing this more and more, in the most far away corners of the world; God’s people lighting up and flashing a signal, as it were, that God is ever present and available to save and guide into a more abundant and rewarding life. That is, if we can pay the price. There’s always a sacrifice.
God’s Refinery
God’s fire is all consuming. And whatever is not of Him burns off of our lives. God help those of us who have built much in this world but little in the kingdom of God. It’s no fun to walk through the fire, but in the end we are certainly better for it. The continual regeneration of life is an unmistakeable attribute of God. Without Him, there is no life-force. I can’t take this train of thought too far here, it’s one blog post, but it ties in with so many other aspects of the human-Christ-eternal dynamic.
MIT tunnel graffiti, hallway art.
If anyone abides not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
John 15.6
The above scripture is exactly how it is. But there are other scriptures which indicate that what isn’t burned up, remains.
Paul says that if our work is burned up, we will suffer loss – there’s my loss hang-up – though we will be saved, but only as through fire. So I would even go as far as saying if anyone doesn’t subject themselves to the fire to burn away what should not be there, then they themselves cannot be saved. Either we chose it voluntarily and in doing so we pass through it, or we succumb to it involuntarily and lose our lives as well.
Peter tells us that everything that makes up the universe will burn and be destroyed and that heaven will pass away. This informs the reader that everyone will pass through that fire; but some things aren’t burned up but remain, continue, live on. And in the case of Christ, that living is eternal.
And again, Paul states that there is coming a great shaking and everything that can be shaken will be. But what is of God and eternal will remain. So this ‘passing through’ is a phenomenon we all must subject ourselves to, I think it’s voluntary, first. But if we don’t do this, run from it or deny God, the fire still must be passed through and we will also lose ourselves, our inhabited vessels even to the flames.
Now let’s think about our lives and how much will be consumed by the fire, how much we’ve done for our own self-centered ambitions and striving to impress other humans in this world. That’s a difficult thought experiment. But let us importantly remind ourselves of this, we are saved not by our own hand but by Christ.
This is so because we are in Him, we abide in Him and guess what? He had no evil in Him so that when He passed through the flames of Hell taking the keys of death Hell and the grave from that pesky Cherub, everything who was Christ rose again. In other words, His body also, being transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing could hold Him, not even the death which was appointed to all of us to suffer, once. So indeed God’s words were true, Jesus suffered death, once as appointed to every man. But again,
But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
Acts 2.24
And again, this is one portion of our promise, having been adopted by Him as His own children, a prophecy that is the Spirit of Christ, we shall inherit life eternal:
…because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
Psalm 16.10
The grave couldn’t hold Him, nor will it hold us, dear brothers and sisters.
Okay, I can’t help but think how long it took me to write this one post. How does one measure time wasted or time spent productively?
Have a beautiful week, all you curious people. Or if you’re feeling adventurous; have a curious week, all you beautiful people~
Featured Image: Snapshot of more MIT graffiti, taken by yours truly~
