Birthright

It's like coming to know Christ again...for the first time. Tonight I was struck with a drop of the feeling He had...the sorrow He had over sin. Yea, not even a drop of His feeling...He knew so much more agony than I'll ever begin to know. When I slightly tell a mis-truth...or spew anger in subtle ways...or whine about my lot...all rubbish next to The Glorious One. We, I, make sin out to be this big list of do's and don't's. Really, it's a life. It's a lifestyle. It's so much less about the doing, and so much more about the heart. The DOING isn't the issue. It's the heart.

I KNOW all this. I've said it a million times before. I've heard it preached a million more. Yet there are occasions when I see the veracity of it as plain as the yellow paint on the walls of my bedroom. The veil is lifted, even if for only a moment.

One of those moments was tonight. I went and saw the movie Avatar. Don't think this is a plug to go see the movie...but somehow He had my heart in just the right spot as I walked into that theater. Watchin these humans grow from the hardheaded, killing machines to green tree huggers....it was so much more. They saw that the balance of life isn't about ONE person's happiness. It isn't about one person or country's agenda. The balance of life requires us to walk in His ways. If we are believers, we are tree huggers.

I feel like I can't type this quick enough. I can't get it out quick enough...the veil is lowering.

I once read Pereleandra; I felt the same way. In Avatar, in Pereleandra, we see Eden before the fall. The rightness of it all is breathtaking, more than magnificent. The look and feel and rhythm of the world before the fall...it was God-ordered. It was a RIGHTEOUS earth. Yet just that ONE SEED of that apple...I can see it falling from Eve's fingers...hitting the ground and spreading like a stain, a wildfire across the earth, leaving us with ashes. And dead.

How does one, born to live in Eden, live in the aftermath of destruction? I suppose today we could ask our brothers and sisters in Haiti. They, more than any others on earth perhaps, know what a poignant aftermath is like. Maybe our Rwandan brothers and sisters or the Sudanese, those beautiful plum-black people, luminous-glowing-in-the-sun people, maybe they could speak of rising in the aftermath. While we are not created to dwell in such conditions, it remains our birth right to be the people of that glorious world. While trees no longer speak to each other as perhaps they once did...and the animals no longer live in harmony...we must live as if they are but asleep, to be awakened and brought to life again at His coming, where the Lion dwells with the Lamb.

So tonight, as I drove home from the theater, I wept. I wept for my dirty little, nobody sin. I wept for the sin of you. I wept for the sin of our fathers. And I wept for the sin to come. For until He comes and wipes us clean once again, that stain remains. And we must fight every day to keep it at bay, to live out of our birthright.

Maybe you could call me a crackpot. But somehow in the midst of all this, I see the light. Tonight, I am out of Plato's cave and looking at the Person next to The Fire itself. Tomorrow I might be back in the cave. But for tonight, I weep for us. And I rejoice, that all will not be forever.


Oh Glorious Father, The StoryMaker. The Beginner of Life. How Kind and Compassionate You are to have Mercy and shower Grace on such as we. Dead, living in a destructive world, You Speak The Life into us. Breathe New Life Father, as never before, Breathe Life into dead souls Father. Bring many to know You...Your Ways. Open eyes to see. Oh that the dead may become alive.

I love You as never before. With all my heart.

Emo Eating versus a Patch Adams moment

Sometimes I get angry at God. Like, mean-case-of-the-reds from Breakfast at Tiffany's angry. I am frustrated with how life has turned out. Or I am angry at a relationship taking more time. Or I am angry that He doesn't seem to hear me. Most often, I am agry when I feel like He's not on my side...like I'm alone, like He's not for me.

When I'm in the throes of this mean-case-of-the-reds I have a tendency to eat. I mean, if I'm gonna feel crappy about life, I should do SOMETHING that feels good. Eating is a feel-good activity for me. Running is a feel-good activity for me too. That's a good combination. It's kept me from being 300 lbs.

No matter the weight level, emo eating is bad.

If I sit and think about it, I realize I need one of those Patch Adams moments. You know the one I'm talking about..it's one of the only 3 scenes you remember from the movie. I mean, who can forget the building size legs outside the doors at the gyno convention? And who can forget Robin Williams running around with a clown nose, making bald cancer kids laugh? And then there's that sweet moment with the butterfly on the cliff...Patch is screaming horrific threats at God.

Then a butterfly comes.

Somehow this puny little butterfly is supposed to make all that anger go away. Butterflies don't work for me. And screaming just makes me lose my voice.

But somehow that screaming and then the peace that comes with the butterfly, well, they're all part of the process. With the eternal-optimist personality that I am, the dislike of conflict, the desire to make others happy, well, I tend to live in a state of happy-go-lucky, it'll-all-work-out-in-the-end verbage. But the problem with that is, well, it doesn't always work out. In fact, it RARELY works out the way we want it to. While our direction, our story in life, requires some doing, some making-it-happen on OUR parts, well, it also requires some shifting-circumstances-to-make-it-possible on God's part. Our very breath requires He allows us to breathe. Our movement and the writing of our story in His story definitely requires movement on His part. THAT is what makes me angry...when I have a deep need for Him to come through...and then it seems He doesn't.

Even as I write all this, I think what an ungrateful wretch I am in those moments. I mean, I have a wonderful place to stay, fantastic friends, a phenomenal family, and there are even opportunities opening up in the area I feel called. BUT, the anger isn't over these things. The anger comes because opportunities to work out of my created purpose aren't actualized. They are simply possibilities without solid depth behind them. I am unsure of their outcome because He hasn't shown me anything to be sure OF. All to say...

I was angry with God tonight. Frustrated. But these feelings were quickly followed by gratefulness at the place I am now....the reminder to be present in THIS moment...to GROW where I'm planted. While I might not be able to BLOOM here as it's not permanent, I CAN grow. And as I watch Him work in this moment today, well, it's pretty cool to see how He takes His time to do things perfectly right. He doesn't waste a moment...nor does He rush. While I want it now, it's better later.

So I'm waiting. No longer angry and somehow I avoided that emo eating for 6 hours. I might go get a snack.