Turn the Tide

I was hearing another horror story, but this time I was hearing two things at once.  And this time I ended with hope.  While I was hearing the story with my ears, a storm was brewing inside my heart, and I was not in charge of it.  Sometimes storms clear the air, and cleanse the countryside.  This one did.

After twenty years of counseling I have heard stories.  Any counselor that stays with it, and keeps their heart in the game has heard stories that break their heart.  Hard stories are one thing.  It is the horror stories that will turn your heart, send you running from the room, make you enraged, or crush you and whatever lame answers you think you might have.  But God.  But God, who isn’t done, and who will have the final word.  But God, who seems to have the ability to bring beauty from ashes.  It is no coincidence that God wrote the promise of beauty from ashes, to a people who lost a whole generation in the ovens of Hitler’s killing machine.  Ashes indeed.

My point is that the reality of human and spiritual evil results in real circumstances.  Real circumstances that are nothing short of atrocity.  And my second point is that God will have the last word.

This last week, as I listened to one more horror story, I believe in the midst of the horror, I heard God speak.  Here is what He said.

Bob, (He calls me that…) it is time to turn the tide in the battle against evil.  It is time that the influence of my people on the earth begin to overshadow and overtake the influence and actions of the kingdom of darkness.  You have listened and cared long enough, it is now time for Me (God) to respond to the cries of my people.

Now, I (Bob) am adding a lot of verbage to this, as God is short on words and long on meaning.  What I heard was laden with understanding more than words.  But here is what I understood.  Some of what I understood was just for me, and I may or may not share at a different time.  Some of what I understood was for me personally regarding this message, and I will write.  But much of what I heard, I believe was for us.  Lots of us.  The us who read these posts, and a bunch of us’s that don’t.

First He said, “Stop whining and clean up your act”.  This one was for me, but help yourself if it speaks to you.  His point was that I thought I was in some pain, until I heard the story.  My pain is a scratch, but I had made it big.  I had focused on it. I gave it authority in my life, and was using it as an excuse for laziness, and maybe even a little bitterness.  Clean up my act, was not about avoiding bad behavior, it was about getting into fighting shape.  No hindrances, no distractions.

Second, He said “Don’t coast now“.  I have gotten some things done in the past few years.  Much of it was far more than I had dared to dream.  I didn’t realize it, but in my self-pity, I was coasting.  The scoreboard looked pretty good, but I was acting like there were only thirty seconds left on the clock. The reality is,  Half-time is ending.  I felt that He said to play the second half smarter than the first.  Not harder, smarter.    Don’t coast, play to win, don’t play to “not lose”.

Third, He said, “it is time to turn up the heat in the spiritual battle.“  Herein lies the need to play smarter.  I am not referring to some fleshy, or soulish pep rally.  Too long we have tried to fight spiritual battles with human ideas.  God is not looking for us to “do” more now, He is looking for us to “abide” more.

I began to see a picture.  Like the end time battle in the valley of Armageddon, God’s presence will win the war.  In my twenty years of hearing stories I have been constantly frustrated by something.  The kingdom of darkness cheats.  It lies, it deceives, and it does not play fair.  It operates in individuals, families, and various groups.  Some groups are organized and intentionally evil.  Others are chaotic and just destructive.  Often these groups operate in secret.  Shadowy organizations kidnap children and sell them for slavery, or sexual profiteering.  Angry and cruel people meet in backrooms and alleys and plot destruction.  Secret and dark, this kingdom operates in shifting shadows.

We don’t.  We stand in the light.  We proclaim who we are.  We don’t lie, we refuse to cheat, heck we are cautious of even appearing to cheat. We hide nothing and we play with integrity, even when it seems like cheaters get ahead.

Can I tell you what I am tempted to do when I hear the stories?  I want to go buy weapons, do a little research and go kick a little butt.  I want to employ investigators and force, and pry open the lid they hide under and make them pay.  It is a great temptation to just go get ‘em.  But here is what I have learned.  In a spiritual war, you cannot fight fire with fire.  You cannot fight evil with evil’s favorite weapons.  Paul tells us, “do not be overcome by evil, instead, overcome evil with good.”

Jesus, we are told, went about doing good to all men, and undoing the works of the devil.

Oh, wait.  I’ve seen Him then.  He occupies a petite Indian woman in Mumbai, who gets down in the dirt to hug a child ravaged by the sex trade. In that girl, Jesus hugs children, embraces prostitutes and listens to the horror stories.  Then He does good to them and undoes the works of the devil.  He teaches them how to live free, financially and spiritually.  And after she allows Jesus to do this through her, the geography that she occupies is filled with God’s presence.

I’ve heard of His work in China.  He occupies a team of men and women who step into the lives of the confused and hurting and present God to them.  No, I don’t mean they tell people about Christianity.  I mean they are inhabited by God.  And they present Him.  Sickness runs away from them, and oppressed people are made free.  And after they allow Jesus to do this through them, the Geography they occupy is filled with God’s presence.

I’ve seen Him stand on a stage and declare to people without hope that hope has just arrived.  I’ve seen Him occupy a man who was once a slave to appetites that were destroying him.  I have seen Jesus demonstrate through this man, to hundreds who are still enslaved that they can be free.  And when he leaves the stage, the geography of that room is filled with God’s presence.

Get it?

Jesus declared to the people of ancient Israel that the presence of God had come back to the earth.  The Kingdom of God came to rule over things that had ruled over the people God made.  Jesus came and told sickness to go away. And it did.  He told demons to flee.  And they did.  He loved the unlovable.  And they received love.  Then those people gave to others what they had received.

The mistake made by the crusaders of the 12th century is still made today by some.  They thought God wanted us to conquer on His behalf.  God proposes rather that we be the conquered ones.  Not geography, but hearts.  One human at a time.  When we are conquered, the geography that we inhabit is filled with God’s presence in and through us.

Love that cannot be vanquished and sent running because of persecution.  Peace that cannot be dispersed by the chaos of darkness.  Like the Jews in the death camps who, speaking of their captors said “they can make us do a lot of things, but they cannot make us hate” we are called to allow Jesus to live through us.

Here is the picture.  There is a light in the darkness, and it is in you.  There are other lights out there.  Turn on your high beams.  Turn up your lumens.  Shine bright enough that your light begins to connect with the light nearby.  Leave no room for darkness.  Hope when it seems silly.  Love when no one else does.  Be radically inhabited.  I am glad for the number of social justice movements that exist and are growing.  Stand for right, and stand for the defenseless.  But always stand as a container.  Don’t go do something for God.  Do something from God.

Here is what I think I heard God say.  In our lifetime the tide can turn.  Not because we get smarter or even more determined, but because we connect to the source of life, power and love, and allow it to pour out of you in great measure. Now is the time.

Ready?