Lest we Divorce

 

Image by Alireza Borzui

I’ve been telling Jesse all week that I had to have time to write before the election, before Tuesday. I’ve been mostly silent the last few months, a complete change from what you all witnessed from late March to early July. I haven’t said as much, but I’ve taken a lot in, and I’ve reflected. And I’ve said a lot to God, and asked for God to speak to me… and waited…

I feel like if I don’t speak now, then anything I say after next Tuesday, November 3^rd, won’t matter. People will be able to say, “well you’re only saying this because ______ happened,” or…. “you’re only saying that because ________ happened.” Unknown spaces right now. There is unknown space of what will happen….. because let’s be honest, no one, not even the most reputable prophet or wisest person, or thorough pollster can be 100% assured of the future before it occurs.  There is a space about to be filled with an outcome, and that outcome is going to leave a large portion of people in this nation, and in the world, terrified, distraught, angry, feeling hopeless, scared, more unsure than they’ve probably ever been.  That’s just where we are at, as a country, as a people, as the world. We have somehow allowed ourselves to become so convinced of our own ability to understand and figure out the most adequate and accurate way forward in pursuit of the Kingdom of Heaven that we cannot help but judge, pity, or villainize those who are different from us.

“I am not like that,” you may say. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps you are one of the few people attempting to live out a truth, an ethic, where we pursue goodwill, demonstrate grace and mercy, actually put fellow mankind before ourselves while listening to others, compromising, working at progress, as opposed to working at winning. But as my wise friend wrote to me just the other day, most everyone is concerned with winning right now. And someone is going to, ‘’win,’’ as they say, in a few days, but even when this person does, I am thinking that we are all pretty much on the verge of losing, said winner included, IF we do not reconstruct ourselves, humble ourselves, and recognize that right now, we have gotten to a place in our nation where basically the people of this country are in the midst of a completely abusive relationship with one another and headed straight toward a radical divorce. In order to prevent that, we must change. We…individuals…ourselves. Me, you.

I often think back on some of the realities of what went down during my own parents’ divorce, and as an adult, looking back, and seeing more clearly what was happening, I can actually offer both of them credit and a ‘’thank you’’ that they did not kill each other. Literally. Because just watch TV…. Dateline NBC, 60 Minutes, any of those shows. A lot of people out there DO just that. They kill each other, over their anger, over issues far less complicated than what my own parents were working through. People of faith, Christians. Normal people. They just kill. I’m fortunate. In my childhood, shit went down, but my parents didn’t kill each other. Or me.

In our nation right now, I can’t say as much. Honestly, we are killing each other.

The past two weeks, after going to our home school co-op in Woodside, Jesse and I have stopped by Costco with the kids. We’ve stocked up on stuff. We haven’t actually been to a Costco except maybe once since we moved into Manhattan a few years ago, but we’ve gone twice in the past two weeks now. Why? Well honestly, common sense. Crap is about to go down, one way or the other, and I guess I just want to have enough toilet paper, diet coke, and tru-moo chocolate milk so that I don’t have to go out unnecessarily. (We did buy other things. Don’t worry).

I have a friend who lives in South Georgia, and his job has literally been threatened to a degree because he is a democrat in a sea of polarized Republicans who leave no room for tolerance and working together and listening, and honestly, just having common sense and common decency. I have another close friend who lives here in New York and works in a secular corporate setting. He is a Christian and leans slightly conservative, and he’s currently battered down and frustrated by the lack of space there is for him and his opinions MERELY to exist in the midst of New York… and even his church. He said, and I quote, “he was tired of being brow-beaten by pastors” (not Jesse or me of course! Ha), who leave no space for discourse or conversation or attempting to see if PERHAPS, JUST PERHAPS we may actually have some type of common goals, goals that could align, goals which we just have radically different ideas about how to achieve because of our GOD-GIVEN radically different life experiences. So here’s a thought, WHAT IF, (I can hear Fig the Fox from Tumble Leaf asking that question. He asks it every other sentence…and Eli watches fifteen-eleven Fig the Fox episodes a week), WHAT IF we actually DID try to work together, somehow, listen to one another, grieve with one another. Is there ANY way to set aside the large agendas and work toward peace and resolution?

The famous passage from Isaiah 11:8, spoken during many Christmas concerts of lessons and carols at good ole Mercer University, most certainly achieved a wondrous rise from my immature friends….okay fine and myself….and….okay fine, even our conductor sometimes, as it was read each year. “And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp… Now the passage is speaking of a time in the future, a restoration, of peace, of the Kingdom of Heaven… where it is safe for even a baby to play on the hole of a dangerous animals home! But of course we could never bare to let ourselves think upon that. All we could do was hold in all the snickers because it certainly sounded like our wonderful Dr. Wilson said the suckling child shall play on the hole of the ass…. And then Dr. Roberts would give us that look of…. “you guys!!! Stop!!! Laugh and I’m going to kill you. Stop it. Kendall. Andrew Moore! ANDY LANE!!!  ALL OF YOU! I MEAN IT!!” A las, somehow, we’d survive it, and move on to the next piece. The concert would be beautiful. Sigh. What joy.

My point. God is going to allow either Joe Biden or Donald Trump to become president of the United States next week… unless the world ceases from existence before then. Or, for those of you who want me to word it more to your liking, “God is going to appoint Joe Biden or Donald Trump as president of the United States next week,” but let me be clear about this….neither of those men are Jesus Christ, and… fine, I’ll say it, neither of those men are the anti-christ, for those of you who read Revelation literally and are vigilantly on the lookout!

My God, your God, whether you know it or not, because He is God of this world, even if people do not worship Him as such, has a WILL…a PLAN…a PURPOSE… one we do not fully understand, cannot ascertain, and can simply make mere projections about based on what we believe to hear from Him in our personal relationship and read in Scripture and glean from the true church community. But none of us ARE that God, and none of our pastors ARE that God, and none of our politicians ARE THAT God. And we do not understand exactly what this God is doing, so much as we try.

That does not mean that we should not try… but just that we must humble ourselves and recognize who we are, and recall the book of Job… that Job never knew of the conversation between God and satan. Point being: there is much we DO NOT KNOW. I believe in God. I believe in satan. I believe in demons and spirits. I believe the words of the bible, interpreted as they should be interpreted, and I believe in the supernatural, as does most of the world, even if western academia or cessationists do not. But we are humans, made in God’s image, and called to cultivate this earth, to be fruitful, to multiple, to go into our cities, into our exiled places, and bring forth life.

John MacArthur recently stated that God never intended our planet to last forever so we did not need to bother ourselves so much with trying to preserve it. I can respect John MacArthur while completely disagreeing with that sentiment. I suppose he was getting at the fact that we shouldn’t be so worried about preserving that we don’t actually utilize stuff. Point taken, but there is wisdom to be had in taking care. The cancel culture cuts both ways, and pretty much EVERYONE, myself included, unfortunately, is guilty of contributing to this cancel culture. To take such a hard stance without the ability to LOVE, to LISTEN, to ENDURE, to ENDEAVOR, well, I cannot in any way shape or form see that THAT is Christ like. Cue here where I would point you to a Facebook post written by a friend of mine where he talked about the most Christ-like thing he did one Christmas was sitting in a jail cell with a lady who mentally not all there and naked, destitute. He gave me permission to post his words, and I plan to… just not sure where to share yet… But if you know Mike and Amy from GCTS around 2007, he posted it on his fb wall- check it out. It’s convicting.

My point: I guess I should get there…. as we are onto the third page of text now. This is a call, to all who are able, to all who have the bandwidth, the headspace, and ability, to come together and be prepared to be humble, and gentle, and kind, and listen, and help. Regardless of which way this election goes, there will be upheaval, and there will be fear. Are we willing to listen to that fear and respond kindly? Without condemning people or brushing them off… are we willing to attempt to understand what it must feel like to feel as they feel… what it must feel like to be in a state that no doubt has been contributed to by our news media and social media and current cultural climate. How many people out there are willing, next week, to reach across the aisle, and comfort someone vastly different from you, while listening to them and not just preaching WELL THIS IS THE SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING. Because whichever way it goes, it is not the solution to everything. Whichever way it goes, it’s not the ushering in of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whichever way it goes, it’s not Jesus arriving on clouds and wiping away every tear. There are going to be problems, issues, burdens, and lots of work ahead in order for any of us to survive.

I alluded early to my parent’s divorce. We had a judge, a judge that basically schooled both of them on how they were failing their children because of their inability to work out their crap. The judge, in his wisdom, tried to divide it in the best possible way so that my parents would not have to deal with another and could attempt to function, with whatever brain strength and emotional strength, they had left. And while my parent’s divorce was literally one of the most traumatic times in my life, them not divorcing would have been more traumatic because, unfortunately, so far as I know, they didn’t have access to the tools and support they would have needed in order to fix their relationship and their own personal issues and parent us. Well who knows. My point is this… our country is literally on the verge of a great divorce right now. That’s what the climate, the atmosphere, the news, feels like, the period of my life of which it reminds me, when those who held the power over me hated one another so much that they had to do terrible, horrendous things, and make awful decisions, some of which literally traumatized their children, all because they couldn’t reach across the aisle and figure it out, all because they needed to win, to be heard, to be validated for their selves instead of falling down before God and just saying “Come what may… I’m sorry. I have failed too.. Help me, Lord. Save me.”

The truth is, well…in my opinion at least, there is a God… in the midst. And if two people, of opposing sides, come together, and want to try to make something out of nothingness, out of brokenness, want to try to help one another, mend wounds, are willing to sacrifice, to change in some places, to compromise, to be vulnerable, trust, even when their teammate inevitably makes another mistake, well God is right there in the midst of that and will NOT let that fail. I have to remind myself about that a lot… that my marriage is not between Jesse and myself, but also between God. We covenanted with God. If it was just me and Jesse, honest truth is, I probably would have bailed by now. But there is a third strand… God is not either side….God is from the outside entering into our midst. Will we allow God to work in us? Will we demonstrate godliness in our character and behavior toward one another and in dealing with one another? Because the truth is, some type of sh** is about to go down, and the people in our churches, and the people with the moral code that champions love and doing unto others as we would have them do to us, and putting others before ourselves, those people, well THEY…WE need to step up and out of this polarized world we are in and try to help our friends and neighbors lest we all end up in the courtroom, in front of the judge, dividing assets, and figuring out who has to go to jail for shooting someone or blowing someone up.

The rest of that passage is as follows… after we get past the baby playing on the asP hole…. I’ll use the good ole KJV for my super, conservative, Southern fanbase. I literally have not read a KJV bible since I was 18 probably, but here goes,

and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.

⁹ They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

¹⁰ And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.

¹¹ And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

¹² And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

¹³ The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.

¹⁴ But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.¹⁵ And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod.

¹⁶ And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.

The point? Are we talking about certain countries or nations being good and others being bad? Not the main point… the point is, God is seeking to unite a people for Godself, a people composed of ALL types of people from ALL across the world under the banner of God’s salvation, a redeemed remnant composed of a myriad of different types. To do away with that which is evil, to establish that which is righteous, to create a New Heavens and New Earth. But my dear friends, this election, regardless of which way it goes, is not going to establish the righteousness of God’s Kingdom on earth… that is to come at some unknown point in the future….but for now… THIS earth, THIS is where we have to work, toil together, against a land that fights against us, in a world where our hearts are deceived and satan works to kill, steal, and destroy. We can seek God’s Kingdom come on Earth as it is in heaven, but we seek that not by voting for a certain political party or person…. We seek that through what I have described, or attempted to describe in my incessant blather above. Please, my friends, PLEASE, do not become a messenger of satan dressed up in some agenda of God. That is not going to get us anywhere except in front of the judge who is quite displeased because in an attempt to be RIGHT, we have traumatized our children entrusted to us, and are now being told we can’t see them anymore.

Be safe. Be well. Vote, if you can. Be kind. Be humble. Stop saying crap like “there is no way you can be a Christian and vote for ______ or support ________.” All you are doing is leading toward divorce, devastation, destruction, despair… Don’t lead that way. I’ve been down that road. It’s not worth it. There is something better… when we invite in the real God, to unify, to assuage, to do a new thing… a new thing that does not hinge upon the next president of the United States of America.