Israel
BANNED
If you got this far, that's something. That I'm allowed to get this far is something, too.
Really, what can any of us say in the presence of one who already knows exactly what's going to be said, and why? Or likewise, done?
I suppose the thread could no less be "Only for good Christians" and the intents would just as well be sorted out. Ain't nothing hidden. Appeals are made...whether snarky to us, or seemingly grounded in the most sincerely selfless attempts. Only God knows.
A sister once said "My soul does magnify the Lord". She said what she said. Whether she meant for me (or any) to consider that the soul is a device of amplification, an organ with an input and an output, and even if translator in amplitude, is not the signal source itself. But this could as easily have been said so that someone like me would get impaled on his own understandings. Or impaled in seeking them.
Remember when David numbered the people? You either do, or don't. It's pretty terrible when someone like me reads it. But even me just pointing it out, kinda "lifting it" (there's a whole lotta other stuff written also...why hi lite this?) may only say far more about me (how can it not?) than even what I think is notable in the story.
It seems all of us, at least those of us with a Bible bent, have a "go to" thingy; provoked, it seems, by circumstance. Some may have a broader frame of referencing, some may seem less, I'm not sure it matters at all. Wretches or "good Christians" may also fit that category of no matter. I can as easily be proud of thinking myself a wretch as anything else.
Or, is that only my peculiar talent? Dare I provoke the Lord? "I'm getting pretty good at wearing this wretch label!" Or is it simply that it's just a whole lot more comfortable? A pair of broke in pajamas? The look of new shoes is one thing, the way they first feel on the feet, quite another.
I hardly know whether the right response is laughter or soiling of pants.
Oddly, my wife laughs when I admit to doing both at once. Is that a reason I love her? I appreciate her for appreciating the fix I sometimes find myself in? Is that enough?
Is it a caution? "See what too much uncontrolled laughter does?"
Or is it more that "I get it. I'm right there with you"? (I think women may have a better, and more open, handle on stress incontinence)
The "I'm right there with you" is coming to mean so much more than I ever could have considered. There's something about someone just hanging with you well beyond the stress and strains of trying to present one's self as "worth hanging with".
Is that what Jesus meant when he told the disciples..."you are those who have endured with me in my trials..."?
No big commendation for having done anything "right", no accolades for having understood much at all...but just...staying? And probably even when not much was understood, at all. Just...staying.
"To whom shall we go...?" they said. It's not even much like they seemed to express a choice. Kinda like "you've pretty well ruined us for fitting anywhere else." You're the only one that's got it going on...there's just not anywhere else to go. And I'm not convinced they much understood better than the rest that departed what "eating his flesh" meant. But they were doing it...not even knowing...just by remaining.
Sure, we know they were "given to Jesus" (of the Father) to this end...but what they knew to themselves, and of themselves in this, well, whatever they reserved as to their "own choice" in the matter I'm convinced they came to see in a better light.
How much to say about a friend, in front of that friend (in His presence)...and even talking about His other friends...(like the disciples mentioned in the Bible)...well...one can come to learn the value of one who will hang with you through that.
And it's not even that He has made anything off limits to consider that I can see. It's a little like I told Him this morning in this matter of relationship and how it appears, at least from what I see from my side. And maybe that's the whole of it, or at least more than I've known. How nothing can ever be "off limits" in a true friendship. How a friend can ask...even what appears the "big ask" (Jesus asked "will you leave also?"...who wants that ball in their court?!!! is there anything..."bigger"?)
So, when I woke up a bit unsettled, a bit troubled that as I see these days running together, oddly...with so little seeming of mile markers, and I laze my way from one into another...even telling my wife yesterday "hey look...it's night time again! we woke up this morning had coffee...just like every other day, and this happened again just like clockwork...it's another time for bed"...she seemed like "well, so what?...no kidding, this is how days pass".
But I felt that unsettling probing...not even knowing it was a probing...just knowing the unsettling of the feelings. Only after, in another "now" did I sense I was being searched.
"Just seems Lord, like I'm almost sleeping my way through these days, and yet to many it seems like the whole world is on fire" And I'm not sure I am giving you the attention you deserve...am I like taking you for granted?
And that moment became that "now" in which I realized we were in a question and answer session.
And I sensed the question became "why would that be troubling to you...that you think you are taking me for granted?" (as though the relationship were based solely upon my diligence)
And I can't deny there was a bit of frank disclosure, a bit of what I perceived as the why I should be unsettled, or troubled in "this relationship".
"Well, honestly, it's because you hold all the power, and I am eminently crushable, so there's that."
And then He persuaded me to trust again in His weakness as the entrance and basis of our relationship.
It's so much more than enough.
Really, what can any of us say in the presence of one who already knows exactly what's going to be said, and why? Or likewise, done?
I suppose the thread could no less be "Only for good Christians" and the intents would just as well be sorted out. Ain't nothing hidden. Appeals are made...whether snarky to us, or seemingly grounded in the most sincerely selfless attempts. Only God knows.
A sister once said "My soul does magnify the Lord". She said what she said. Whether she meant for me (or any) to consider that the soul is a device of amplification, an organ with an input and an output, and even if translator in amplitude, is not the signal source itself. But this could as easily have been said so that someone like me would get impaled on his own understandings. Or impaled in seeking them.
Remember when David numbered the people? You either do, or don't. It's pretty terrible when someone like me reads it. But even me just pointing it out, kinda "lifting it" (there's a whole lotta other stuff written also...why hi lite this?) may only say far more about me (how can it not?) than even what I think is notable in the story.
It seems all of us, at least those of us with a Bible bent, have a "go to" thingy; provoked, it seems, by circumstance. Some may have a broader frame of referencing, some may seem less, I'm not sure it matters at all. Wretches or "good Christians" may also fit that category of no matter. I can as easily be proud of thinking myself a wretch as anything else.
Or, is that only my peculiar talent? Dare I provoke the Lord? "I'm getting pretty good at wearing this wretch label!" Or is it simply that it's just a whole lot more comfortable? A pair of broke in pajamas? The look of new shoes is one thing, the way they first feel on the feet, quite another.
I hardly know whether the right response is laughter or soiling of pants.
Oddly, my wife laughs when I admit to doing both at once. Is that a reason I love her? I appreciate her for appreciating the fix I sometimes find myself in? Is that enough?
Is it a caution? "See what too much uncontrolled laughter does?"
Or is it more that "I get it. I'm right there with you"? (I think women may have a better, and more open, handle on stress incontinence)
The "I'm right there with you" is coming to mean so much more than I ever could have considered. There's something about someone just hanging with you well beyond the stress and strains of trying to present one's self as "worth hanging with".
Is that what Jesus meant when he told the disciples..."you are those who have endured with me in my trials..."?
No big commendation for having done anything "right", no accolades for having understood much at all...but just...staying? And probably even when not much was understood, at all. Just...staying.
"To whom shall we go...?" they said. It's not even much like they seemed to express a choice. Kinda like "you've pretty well ruined us for fitting anywhere else." You're the only one that's got it going on...there's just not anywhere else to go. And I'm not convinced they much understood better than the rest that departed what "eating his flesh" meant. But they were doing it...not even knowing...just by remaining.
Sure, we know they were "given to Jesus" (of the Father) to this end...but what they knew to themselves, and of themselves in this, well, whatever they reserved as to their "own choice" in the matter I'm convinced they came to see in a better light.
How much to say about a friend, in front of that friend (in His presence)...and even talking about His other friends...(like the disciples mentioned in the Bible)...well...one can come to learn the value of one who will hang with you through that.
And it's not even that He has made anything off limits to consider that I can see. It's a little like I told Him this morning in this matter of relationship and how it appears, at least from what I see from my side. And maybe that's the whole of it, or at least more than I've known. How nothing can ever be "off limits" in a true friendship. How a friend can ask...even what appears the "big ask" (Jesus asked "will you leave also?"...who wants that ball in their court?!!! is there anything..."bigger"?)
So, when I woke up a bit unsettled, a bit troubled that as I see these days running together, oddly...with so little seeming of mile markers, and I laze my way from one into another...even telling my wife yesterday "hey look...it's night time again! we woke up this morning had coffee...just like every other day, and this happened again just like clockwork...it's another time for bed"...she seemed like "well, so what?...no kidding, this is how days pass".
But I felt that unsettling probing...not even knowing it was a probing...just knowing the unsettling of the feelings. Only after, in another "now" did I sense I was being searched.
"Just seems Lord, like I'm almost sleeping my way through these days, and yet to many it seems like the whole world is on fire" And I'm not sure I am giving you the attention you deserve...am I like taking you for granted?
And that moment became that "now" in which I realized we were in a question and answer session.
And I sensed the question became "why would that be troubling to you...that you think you are taking me for granted?" (as though the relationship were based solely upon my diligence)
And I can't deny there was a bit of frank disclosure, a bit of what I perceived as the why I should be unsettled, or troubled in "this relationship".
"Well, honestly, it's because you hold all the power, and I am eminently crushable, so there's that."
And then He persuaded me to trust again in His weakness as the entrance and basis of our relationship.
It's so much more than enough.
