Ezekiel and the Certainty of Justice

 Father God, the recent readings in my Bible Recap (to which I am listening more than reading!) talk a lot about Your anger at Your wayward people and the need--yes, need--for corrective punishment.  It has made me consider the possibility that the era in which I am living will not go unpunished.  It has even made me wonder whether there may be an inevitability about the ongoing decline of this culture and the continuation of the willful evil and corruption in American politics and in American evangelicalism.  

It is breaking my heart.  

Please, Abba, reach my beloveds.  I am listening to The Chosen's Season 4 aftershow, and it is validating these themes from another period of time: from Lamentations in the Old Testatment, to Jesus's own time on earth, and right up until this year.  I don't know anymore how to talk to my unbelieving relatives and loved ones, especially given the terrible examples of our Christian family (or some of them).  Help me NOT to be one of those bad examples.  Help me remember to pray constantly for Your will to be done.  And help me to obey You everywhere You are working out Your will in front of me.

Hardship and Lamentation

 Poetry.  I have often wished that I had that gift.  I think that some of what is labeled "poetry" really isn't, but true poetry moves me.  The book of Lamentations does.

I (and I wish I didn't use the word "I" so much!) have avoided writing because almost as soon as I sit down to write, my eyes tear up.  The world, and especially this country, is such a mess.  Some people, like my DH, are very disconnected from the problems and live in their cocoons without seeming to realize that destruction could very well lie ahead, and not in the distance.  Judgment is so much closer than many want to recognize.  In these recent Bible readings of Jeremiah and Lamentations (but not only there), You mention promised punishment and discipline really often, God.  

And Your people sometimes suffer right alongside the sinners.

These are sobering thoughts, and juxtaposing them with "the joy of the Lord" is oxymoronic on its face.  I guess that is what I take away from Lamentations, and the commentaries that I heard today: it's not only just okay, but necessary and spiritually healthy, to lament and question and emote to You.  You kmow our hearts anyway; why hide?  (Adam and Eve, that was dumb.)  

If this is how I get to know You better, then I am all in.  Even as I sit here, I imagine (or do I sense?) You sitting next to me.  And here come the tears.  I imagine Your foreknowledge of all that You had to endure, and I imagine Your wanting to share some of Your deepest thoughts--just the ones You know I can handle right now.  We commiserate; we grieve over this fallen world and the misled people we both love.  And we go forward, in large part because it is impossible to go back.  (Rather like I felt once or twice during labor!)

I love You, God, as I have said before, so much and still not enough.  May it grow.

Punishment Will Come

Not undeservedly, Abba, will You discipline Your people.  Your heart may be angry, and it is also almost certainly broken, over the stubborn rebelliousness and stiff-necked resistance of Your children.  I think I would feel the same way.  These thoughts come from my TBR reading from Jeremiah today.  You all but guarantee punishment, knowing the hearts of Your beloved ones will not soften or turn to You.

Don't let me be the same way.

Intercession time:

• Christopher's permanent legal residency paperwork
• Repentance for the evangelical Christian church in the US
• The upcoming national election (Your will be done, no matter whether I agree)
• Direction for my next move vocationally and financially
• Wisdom--and more wisdom.  Discernment, too
• I am not sure how to pray for Tue and his faith.  It has become so complicated to "evangelize" when the evangelical church has become so disreputable and, frankly, stupid in many ways.

What to do next, Abba?  I need Your to-do list!

To You be the glory and may Your will be done.  Amen.

MercyMe - "I Can Only Imagine" Official Music Video

God Shot on Prophecy

 Abba, I will stay focused here for 15-18 minutes.  My ADHD may make that a little challenging, but nevertheless, I will remain on this site from 12:32 p.m. until 12:47-12:50 p.m.  :)

A lot of what I have been pondering in my devotional time and in the current sociopolitical landscape of the USA/evangelical Christianity is the recalcitrance of Your people--even those people who appear to be devoted, devout, and dedicated to You.  How do they, and we, fail to get Who You are and what Your heart's desires are?  I know how desperately wicked and deceptive my own heart is.  It makes it hard for me to trust that some of my thoughts, attitudes, and conclusions are validly from Your mind.  A posture of humility and submission to Your correction is essential and so rare.  Do I take pride in my obedience?  Yeah, sometimes.  I have grown up (thank you, Rick Anderson, and the Enneagram Style 2) valuing positive feedback as a fundamental part of my self-esteem.  It has served me in many good ways, but it has also misled me in some important life paths.  The only positive feedback I really need is Yours.  This year has reinforced that lesson with some pain and a great deal of reconsideration of what matters to me.  And also what matters to You.  

I know that You love me deeply and unconditionally, which brings me immense (may I even say "eternal"?) comfort.  I also know, dialectically, that I am deeply flawed and ugly in spirit--"poor in spirit," perhaps.  Reconciling these two absolute truths into a dialectic is a challenge and a wonderful mystery.  

But I digress.  Or do I?

I started by acknowledging that the human heart, whether others' or mine, is desperately wicked and prone to wander.  Why I pray for this country's repentance is a conundrum.  I know that there is great evil afoot, particularly in Republicanism and evangelical Christianity, and I also know that the opposite party focuses way too much on human goodness, freedom, and self-reliance rather than on repentance and dependence on You.  Integrating these realizations for the purpose of good citizenship is challenging.  This challenge brings me back to the truth that I am not only, and far from most importantly, a citizen of this country but even more so a citizen of Heaven.  I miss my home, though I have never been there!  "I can only imagine...."

Time to move on with the day, Abba.  I am crying, of course.  Any time I connect with You I can't seem to help it.  I love You so much and still not enough!  Amen.

PS Safety for Amy's flight home from Mexico, please?  

Audacious Ask

I don't know why I seem to have been avoiding spending some time in prayer, Adonai Abba.  I seem to be constantly prayer-minded all day long, particularly in my solitude these days (although I do have Bailey). I know I have been preoccupied with the election and the ways in which it intersects with evangelical Christianity (not necessarily the faith involving a relationship with Jesus).  

I just did it again.  So, I shut down my phone.  :)

A quick dump of rapid-fire, flash round issues:

• Going to Michigan to see Debbie
• Dale and the ultra-conservative, angry position he is in
• The unresolved workplace violence/discrimination grievance
• My own next step(s)
• The usual prayer for family members all across relationships (nuclear, extended, in-law, etc.)
• Pursuit of the final internships for the CAGS in School Counseling

And the "audacious ask" in the title--what would my most audacious ask of You be?  I do NOT want to fall into the traps that I see laid out in The Chosen, in my Bible Recap readings, and in the apparent deception of, and in, the evangelical community of 2024 (a little before, up to the present, and possibly beyond).  You are not my vending machine, and I determine not to use audacity to ask for earthly things.  (PS Thank You, omnipotent God, for the prisoner release of the American hostages taken by Russia.)  

What, then, shall I request of You?

From The Message, a contemporary and simplified interpretation:

I'm asking GOD for one thing, only one thing: To live with him in his house my whole life long.  I'll contemplate his beauty; I'll study at his feet.  That's the only quiet, secure place in a noisy world, The perfect getaway, far from the buzz of traffic. (Psalm 27: 4-5)

Quite consistent with my focus on my "one thing" philosophy of life!

Abba Adonai, let this then be my audacious ask.  If I am now Your temple (1 Corinthians 6:19), then I can live with You literally all the time, 24/7.  The world is indeed noisy, and I need that quiet, secure place as a getaway contemplate and study the things that characterize You--to know YOU.  That sounds like an audacious ask, indeed.  May You and I together make it so.

Amen!