"In this world, you WILL have trials,"
and butterflies. Tryin' to keep it real.
Suicide
Strangling vice-like work pressures
Internal bleeding
Empty nesting
Emotional collapse
Anxiety ticktickticking
Cancer chewing a body to pulp
Heart attack
Death
Heart surgery
Menopause. Good grief!?!
Job.
Stephen.
David.
Daniel.
ShadrachMeshachAbednego.
Esther.
JESUS CHRIST
To whom much is given, much is expected. Going through trials? Suck it up. Flash your man card. Pull up your big girl panties. Meld into the armor of God. You - me - in our trials, read the Bible, we are in excellent company. Frankly, I believe American Christians today are spoiled, self absorbed, arrogant, and a bunch of wusses - At least I am, no doubt. So easy my eyes dance off Christ like a butterfly to light on self in arrogant pity while forgetting the most holy Jesus Christ, beaten, hated, spat on, nails penetrating flesh, bones. FEEL those nails dragging through tendons, muscles, crushing, slicing through the bones in His hands and feet as His body slowly slid down the cross. Grisly gospel side Christians forget to remember.
Sin poured out on the Lamb - rape-incest-murder-child sacrifice-suicide-drug use-abortion-wife beatings-arson-satan worhip, embezzlement, adultery, child abuse, greed, addictions, mutilations, serial killings, torture, holocaust atrocities, lies, lust, and all the darkest evil thoughts of mankind - ALL sins for all time - poured on Him a thick blistering tar bubbling, melting His skin to bone, to death. Three days dead - a rotting stinking human corpse - to know our lives and our deaths. We see self and forget to FEEL His sacrifice, to look upon these deeds of Jesus Christ on our behalf. We rush through the turnstile of life jauntily tossing Him fleeting glances in our frantic search for happiness instead of resting in HIS joy: a joy alive in ANY circumstance. Erasing His grace, we super glue our eyes on our own petty, pitiful, paltry selves - we, all, undeserving of even one breath.
To whom much is given, what we've been given: the price Jesus paid and His gift of giving us the choice to accept or reject His saving grace. Yes, to whom much is given - even in the most unimaginable tragic horrific circumstances - MUCH is expected.We grow or say no. We survive or nose-dive. We step day by day, or we give sin its way. We grip our faith rope as it slides through our hands to bloody raw, or we take Satan's road gripped in his horny claw.
I fail. I fall. I turn from His face. I wallow in my pain. Yet, He paves my road one step at a time. And somehow, He gifts me through another day. Weakly waving a white concrete surrender flag - I beg God to lift the boulders of life's gut punches from my family's shoulders. Then I turn away from Him for another day.
To whom much is given (the good and the bad), much is expected. When God finally spoke to Job, He didn't call Job to His lap for rock-a-bye baby.
"Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?" Job learned wind in a hurricane fast just WHO GOD IS. I AM GOD; you, Job, are not.
My brain only sees black and white - I don't get "nice speak." So, I TOTALLY get it when God jerks Job up and reminds him who is CREATOR and who is CREATURE. Man! I get it. I forget it.
Jerk me up, oh holy God. Humble me in my grief. Blind my eyes to my petty pain. Grow me to revel in and celebrate, and give thanks for Christ's pain, the MUCH He gave and endured for me. Thunder in my brain that my pain is no gain. His pain SAVED THE WORLD.
