the walking wounded

i've heard it said that the Word and those who speak it should afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.  Truth and Grace. 

i think i've pretty well established which one i'm better at. 

Sadly, it's also pretty well established that there are folks who will use the Word as a weapon for their own purposes.  Twist its meaning to fit their agendas.  Justify themselves with indulgent edits.  Often the Word gets blamed for this.  As if God should have been more careful with the words He chose.  Or put some kind of disclaimer on the Holy Scriptures.  (There is one, and we'll get to that.)  Often the church, Christ's very Bride gets blamed en masse for the corruption of some who claim membership in her.  Make no mistake, all are sinners so there is no perfect church nor perfect church goer but taken as a whole, the Church is Christ's Body and therefore good.  To speak ill of her is to speak ill of her husband who loves her. 

That said, Christ warned us wolves would sneak in from the Synagogue of Satan to corrupt her from within if they could as they always have.  They lure away those whose faith and knowledge are incomplete.  They are thieves who steal for power, for material gain or just for the hell of it.  Read the Word and you will see the over arching story of the Son of Man wooing and wanting His wayward wife.  From Serpent in the Garden to the Scarlet Dragon in final act, Satan hates God so he hates His Bride too.  He cannot touch God, so he attacks mercilessly and with cunning the one God loves.  He has been a liar and murderer from the beginning and we are the prey.

Many have been hurt in this war.  Many have real wounds.  i acknowledge this.  Do you, afflicted beloved, acknowledge that none of this happened without the express knowledge and approval and even ordination of your loving Husband God? 
"Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
    I have tried you in the furnace of affliction." (Is 48)
That's just one verse.  If i were to post all the ones that state this, express or implied, i would pretty much have to repost the Bible here.  Don't take my word for it, just do a quick search for "affliction", take The Word for it.  Affliction is not random.  It, like all of creation, serves a purpose, His.  To refine, to burn away what is not good, to turn us back to our source of Life and away from the Death we were choosing instead.  

To bring us home, to bring us to our senses, to bring us back to our loving husband and Father.

But that's not the way we use it anymore.  We use it now to justify our therapeutic self-indulgence.  We weave our hurts and our wounds into a stifling comforter from under which we hide from the outside world, from the monsters, from the scariness, from our responsibility, from the Light.  We muffle the words we don't want to hear.  We think ourselves warm and safe and untouchable and all we are is smothered.  We have buried the Talent of God for we have found him a hard man who reaps where he does not sow and gathering where he did not scatter seed.  'i have been hurt so i am only protecting myself.'  We justify silencing those who speak truth, we slap sentimental bumperstickers all over the hard parts of the Word so we don't have to use or hear words like "obey" and "listen" and "sin" and "confess" and "commandment."  God loves me, this i know, for the Bible tells me so and God is love so he doesn't want me to do anything hard or scary or where i might possibly get hurt.  He cannot possibly ask me to forgive because of what happened to me.  He cannot ask me to obey because of what i've been through.  i know i shouldn't do this but you don't know where i've been.  i need this!

We are justified.  Righteous.  Not even God can ask us to do anything anymore because we have been afflicted!  We are the Comfortable IN our Affliction.

That's enough for today.  Please pray and listen and let's just see where that takes us for a while.

My Beloved (because Seamus seems to confuse some folk :)

[i read the Bible through every year and have since 2010.  That's not a brag, it's a confession.  Because even though i do that and therefore have read Jeremiah 11 at least seven times in the last seven years, Saturday was the first time this line struck me and it struck me as new.  As if i was reading it for the very first time.  That happens to me a lot.  God reveals to you what He wants to reveal when He wants to reveal it.  That's just one of the reasons we keep coming back to the well each and every day as often as we can.  i'm told the line by itself out of context is dangerous and possibly harmful.  i'll deal with that thought another day.  For now though, i've included the raw response i had to it in my journal.  No spit, no polish, just what came out of me when i read it.  Hope its helpful.  At least more helpful than any of Seamus' musings.]

“What rights has my beloved in my house
    when she has done many wicked things?”

There is so much here, Yahweh God.  First, that she is your beloved.  Second that she is unfaithful.  That you wish to bring her into your house or she is in it already doing her wickedness.  Father, we are your bride and yes, we have done, are doing and will do many wicked things and we have no rights in your house much less to be in your house at all.  None.  Yet!  But!  You are the Bridegroom!  You have come for your bride anyway!  You made her clean!  You washed away her iniquity!  You have rescued us, saved us, bought us out of our slavery!  Off the slave block!  You took us home.  You restored us to our children.  You make us part of yourself again.  You join yourself to us!  You are amazing! 

Seamus rides again

"So what's necessary for an authoritarian regime to gain and hold power?"  Seamus asked.
"Historically speaking?" i shrugged.  "Abolish free press and take all the guns.  After that, abolish free elections... umm, i dunno, religion?  Guess they should hold sway over that too."
"Aye, that's the kinda thing we usually worry aboot, right?  First two amendments.  Framers musta worried aboot it too.  That's why this is so brilliant!"
"Um... what is?"
"This regime."
"This... You think...?"
"Oh don't get me wrong, I dinna know who's in charge.  The fat man doesn't seem swift enough for my thenkin' but he's certainly got the ego fer it, ferdamshuir.  But you gotta admire what they've doon."
"You think they've abolished the free press and taken all the guns?"
"Fook no!  And tha's the beauty of it!  They dinna have to!  They gotta lil' help, okay, a lotta help.  First off, the innernet," he held up a pretzel stick, i guess that was his visual representation of the internet, "Tis flooded with news sources nough.  (To this day, i don't know how to spell how he pronounces words like how, now, flew, spew!)   Ever' twit wit'a twitta is a goddumm journalist nough."  He smashed his pretzel all over the bar.  He flicked the pieces this way and that.  "Alt facts, fake facts, their facts, yer facts, dunna know how anyone tells wha's goddumm goin' on anymuir!  Then ye got these lefties," he picked up the largest piece left, "whoo'r so keen to take'm down, so goddum anxious to get a shot inna 'im, they go  and go off half cocked.  They goddumm shoot their loads into their own goddumm foot anna ye git the whole world laughin' at'm, all you gotta do is let the rope out anna watch'm hang themselves," he ate the lefties.  Dusted off his hands, "So there ye are, no need to abolish free press, just flood the market fer the easily swayed to pick ther favorite and ignore the rest and discredit them all to the point where no thinkin' man troosts'm and it amoonts to the same theng."
"Okay, i can see that.  But what about the guns?  How are they going to take over and not deal with armed revolt?"
"What armed revolt?"
"Americans are never gonna let them take our guns, we have more now than ever!"
"Aye, ye do, but again, why would they come for thum?"
"To.. stop an armed revolt?"
"Wha armed revolt?"  He smirked at me.  i hate when he smirks at me. 
"There's not going to be an armed revolt..."
"There's no gonna be no armed revolt, lad, and that's the best part, cuz all his rhetoric is aimed at winnin' o'er one group anna one group only...
"The ones with the guns." 
"Ye catch on late, but ye do catch on. When the revolt comes lad, his owen will police all the rest.  All 'is life, he's made a large livin' onna gettin' others to do his dirty work for 'im and he ain't changed his tune a bit.  'N why should 'e?  Its workin'."