godwho's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Living in/for darkness? I watched "United 93" tonight. I experienced a wave of nausea as the terrorists were taking over the airplane, and then intense sadness... for them. I can't imagine the dread of planning your own death for years, or the fear involved in serving a god who would demand that kind of operation -- one in which you maticulously engineer to eliminate yourself and take out as many other people as possible -- in order to make sure your eternal standing. When it came down to the end (or toward the end; when I stopped it, the passengers were just deciding to do something), most people were praying. I couldn't help but wonder what I'd do in the same situation, but in my imagining it wasn't me I was worried about, but my child. I could picture the people screaming, and the confusion, and how scared we'd be. But what I thought about was the second part of Psalm 139:16, which says, "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." When we walk out of our front door (or go to bed at night) the day we will die, God already knows. He is not surprised by what appear to be plot twists to us. And there's such a comfort to that. Dying isn't the worst thing that could happen to me, even though my flesh isn't in any hurry to go. If the "number" is up, it's over. I hope if, faced with the knowledge that the end was imminent, I could say, in the words of the theological giant, Worf, "Today is a good day to die." I guess I don't understand the point of jihad. Is it as simple as "death to the infidels"? To what end? 'Till we're all gone? Were these men's lives better for their religious beliefs, or was everything lived with an eye to the delights of the afterlife? There is an interesting scene at the beginning of the film where one of the terrorists is depilatating rather thoroughly, and this is after shaving his chest. So are they basically living to die? Again, it makes me really sad for the people who are sincerely entangled in this belief system. I pray that the light of truth will penetrate that darkness. 10:00 p.m. - 2007-01-08 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I feel pretty and witty and... For some reason, I was playing out in my mind this conversation with one of those people who dismisses HIV/AIDS by saying it's a specific judgment from God against gays (although I have a female relative who contracted HIV through hetero sex, and my sister's dear friend's under-10-year-old dauther died of AIDS she got from a blood transfusion as a baby). Anyway, if this imagined confrontation ever happens, I will offer to concede to the person that AIDS is a discipline against gay or extramarital sex if they'll agree with the Bible that "Those God loves he also disciplines," and concede that God must REALLY love the gays to try such extreme measures to get their attention. Wonder how that'd go over?... 6:01 p.m. - 2006-12-12 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Theolo...gee I was speaking with my mom this afternoon when a statement she made (intending it to be positive, and I suppose it is a step forward from what's been taught in the past) shone a bright spotlight on the main reason I cannot be affiliated with the denomination in which I grew up. Their preacher was differentiating between purposefully turning one's back on God and on simply sinning, like messing up or stumbling on the path. He was saying that you can't feel like just because you screwed up (although I'm almost certain he didn't use the word "screw"), it is tantamount to walking away from God. "As long as your overreaching intention is to please God," that's what matters. Of course, He realizes we are going to make bad decisions, and He forgives those. So my very huge issue with this is that it assumes, on the flip side, that after you've made a genuine decision to follow Christ, you can later "decide" to "turn your back on God" and walk away, back into lostness. This runs so contrary to everything the Bible teaches. When I was growing up, I heard the Baptist church pooh-poohed often because of their "once saved/always saved" beliefs. In our church's eyes, I guess, there was a problem with telling people that they could be assured of their eternal security because then, well heck, all them good-fer-nothin' sinners would just go out whorin' and drankin' and killin' and havin' a high old time, thinkin' they was carryin' around a "get outta jail free" card. Having visited a Baptist church for a while and heard the actual message, it's so much more in line with the truth than the legalistic line we were fed. In discussing this with my mother once, I made the statement that there is no way a child of God can "unbecome" a child of God, no matter what they do. She actually said, "But Satan is strong!" I practically yelled, "Not stronger than GOD!" There are so many references in the Scriptures about this. Specifically, that the Devil can't snatch anyone out of God's hand. It'd be like me telling my child that because of her behavior, she's no longer my child. I mean, if she's acting in a way I cannot tolerate, there are plenty of things I can do to get her attention and try to stop her, but she's always going to be mine, even if I'm not happy with her. There is a chance I might have kept buying into this warped view of the family of God had I not rebelled how and when I did. I can assure you that my aim, during those couple of years, had nothing to do with pleasing God. I was uninterested in having anything to do with Him. He didn't want me to be doing the things I was doing; I knew that; and I didn't want to stop doing them, so... I was incommunicado, and largely, after a while, without a guilty conscience about it. However, I'd made a commitment to God at a young age, and He took it seriously, even when I didn't. Looking back now, I see how He pursued me. Relentlessly. Dangerously. He really didn't want me doing what I was doing, and if I wasn't going to be in His word listening to Him, or around His people being encouraged to do the right things, He was going to hunt me down. And He did. My life's situation deteriorated further and further until I was forced to change or, very literally, be willing risk my life if I didn't. Looking back, this is such a precious thing to me. He was, of course, right. His way is perfect, and my way was exhausting, painful, and ultimately unfulfilling. I felt "happy" enough most of the time, but I think back to how I'd melt down if I got a traffic ticket or something small like that... The least excuse to have an emotional cave-in and I was there. And that's not good enough for my Father. So he took me out. And I'm convinced that if an increasingly violent person with whom I was affiliated at the time had actually taken me out, that still would have been better than the alternative of staying put. Now, this isn't a Christian movie. Once God shook me up enough to get me out of my lifestyle, it's not like I was skipping back to church, ready to walk the straight and narrow. I moved, but I didn't really turn around. One thing it did do was sort of get me back in the orbit of my parents (whom I love dearly, despite our differences of opinion on several key Biblical issues). Unfortunately, I was lying to and largely disrespectful of them. But my new situation put me in the path of the person who would one day become my spouse. When we met, he was a pretty new Christian and trying to "live the walk." However, our early relationship showed that we were not firing spiritually on all cylinders. In fact, I pretty much lied to HIM, too, because (this is such a load of hooey) I "liked" him and wanted him to stay interested in me! He said it was important to him that whoever he married be someone with a personal faith in God. I pointed to the lifelong stake I had in church as some kind of sign that God and I were like || that. So, even with my continuing stupid, wrong, and manipulative decisions, there was a divine will at work. Those moves all put me back into a church building, which was the only place I was going to hear God speak, since I didn't study the Bible at all. The church where my husband went was fun. It was easy to act "churchy" and plug in. Soon, I was involved in ministry. What they didn't know is that, in my heart of hearts, I still wasn't on board. It took two good years before something clicked and I came "home." One thing for sure is that my life, though far from perfect and with its own fair share of trials and hurts, has a more peaceful flow now that I'm going with instead of against the current. And I get it now. And I look back and see this huge orchestration... and realize I was being romanced by God! I was being wooed by someone to whom I'd already vowed to love forever, but on whom I cheated. And He still came after me. I'm not special. I don't believe God likes me so much more than anyone else that He made a special effort in my case. I know with absolute certainty what my life coupled with the Scriptures bear out: When you accept Christ's redeeming work on the cross, you are His. Forever. Whether you feel like it or not, whether you want it later or not. You can't "out-sin" God's love and forgiveness. God doesn't take back gifts. Once it's yours, it's yours. I don't want my child growing up with the same doubt I did. I don't want my child feeling that she's balancing on a precipice, and that if she does just ONE more "bad" thing, that might be what pushes her over the edge to the place where God doesn't want her anymore until she chooses to clean up and come back to Him. I want her to know the truth and freedom and peace of His love. Oh, on a petty note... A friend' pre-teen daughter wants to be baptized. This woman hadn't gone to church in more than a decade, but their family recently found a great congregation where her church-phobic husband feels comfortable, so they've been going. Anyway, my friend apparently told her child that before she is baptized, she needs to start minding better. She said, "You're old enough now to know better." So... holding the Bride of Christ at ransom in order to undo ten years of bad parenting?? Yikes! This kind of thing is why something like 90% of all kids who grow up "in church" leave once they're out of the house! This so doesn't have the aroma of God. 8:48 p.m. - 2006-12-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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