In the last post, we discussed some simple dynamics and some simple steps for cleansing land. And I mentioned a lot of dynamics that involve us talking to the L-rd and getting His perspective for dealinng with the land.
In this post, there are some more specialized dynamics that are involved.
Other Dynamics
1) Ask the L-rd if He wants you to engage with the land in a personal fashion. As a commercial electrician, I have had the opportunity to work with bits of land that are golf to house businesses, and the land responded to my hand physically touching the soil on which the business is being built.
As you interact with the land, the L-rd, as a means of nullifying a curse or something that is not from Him, may ask you to celebrate communion on the land and with the land. And as with anyone, partake of the elements yourself, and share some of those elements with the land, breaking the bread on the land and pouring the one out on the land.
2) there may be times when the L-rd asks you to build a cairn of stones and use a sequence of wine, salt, and oil. Wine for cleansing and moving from negative numbers to zero, salt for healing at zero, and oil for increasing anointing and growth into positive numbers. Be open to the idea G-d May ask you to do something weird to you, but the land will really appreciate the act and the intentionality.
3) There are three major pollutants of land that lead to all sorts of junk piling up: idolatry, adultery, and bloodshed. As we handle those issues, it is a good idea to move into asking the L-rd about whether or not those three catastrophes occurred on your land in question, and, if so, to what extent they happened. if someone was murdered, or a home was wrecked, the L-rd and the land remember those things, and we need to be careful to handle those things fa with a tender and sober mind. And to repent and ask the L-rd to cover over the sins and cleanse them with the blood of Jesus.
Gang, I realize this is a shorter post, but these are some other dynamics that we need to cover as we work through connecting with land and returning creation to the intended purpose.
As you work through this, I bless you to hear what the L-rd is showing you and to move into a place where He can use you more greatly in land.
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
John 3:6 ESV
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,”
Acts 17:16-26
The Impetus
One of my friends from Georgia asked me what it looks like to clean up a house and land, and what that looks like. Below is my counsel to him, and there was so much, I figured it would make for good counsel for those here who are regular readers. Now, mind you, this will take a few minutes in order for you to discern what is happening and listening as the L-rd speaks to you, so I would also take time to hone the gifts of discernment that the L-rd has given each of you.
The Potential Pushback
I understand the potential pushback on this concept from sone who would say “G-d has not given everyone all the gifts, and so discernment is not my gift.” I undertand this, seriously. However, I would respond by saying “discernment of spirits” is a root phrase that covers a forest of trees’ worth of many different types of discernment, just as the gift of tongues is labeled in 1 Corinthians 12 is called “different types of tongues”. I believe there are MANY MANIFOLD AND VASTLY DIFFERENTIATED AND BEAUTIFULLY COLORED types of discernment. And so in that broad category of “discernment” there are many different types of discernment, and G-d has picked out a few of those types and given them to each believer, just as He determines. Besides, so one could convince me that G-d wants us spiritually blinded and incapable of picking up what is happening in the spiritual realm. Nor could anyone persuade me that G-d is stingy with giving gifts. Also, when we are talking about discerning of spirits, we are each made to distinguish between various types of spirits, or spiritual entities. We are made to hear between angelic spirits, demonic spirits, unclean spirits, our human spirit versus our human soul, other human spirits, and the Spirit of the True and Living G-d.
If I were to advise you, Andy, I might say something like the following.
1) Take a minute to thank the Father for what He has given you.
2) Spend a few minutes listening with your spirit (discernment) as to what is going on with your house and your land. Spend some time writing down the things that you pick up on.
3) Ask the Father to open up the books and legal records that are in the spirit realm pertaining to your particuluar parcel of land. For example, one of the things that my wife and I discerned was that our land was formerly a Native American burial ground and there were those sorts of curses negatively affecting thte land.
3a) Every house and business has a blueprint in the natural, usually kept in the offices of the city or county government. In the same way, heaven has a blueprint of sorts for the way things were designed. So, what you might ask the L-rd, is for Him to work with the originial design He intended for your land based on the blueprints He has in heaven.
3b) Acts 17:26 says that G-d placed people groups on the land where they were supposed to dwell. From this, I infer that within each parcel of land, G-d has placed gifts, treasures, and resources (both natural and spiritual) that are unique to each piece of land that will facilitate more fulfilling living for those people that dwell in each piece of land. And earlier, for context, Acts 17:16 says that Paul’s human spirit WAS PROVOKED within him because the city was “full of idols”. I do not believe the nature of the provocation in Paul’s spirit was just referring to the presence of the physical statuse of the gods, but further and more deeply referring to some inherent spiritual reality that is cluttering up the spiritual realm as well. Just as flesh gives birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit (John 3:6), so also that which is spirit and spiritual is going to be impacted not merely by what is seen in the natural and fleshly realm, but moreso by that which is unseen and spiritual.
4) Ask the L-rd to put into alignment everything that is not in alignment, both in those spiritual-legal documents, and on your given piece of land, and sometimes He might want you to specifically address the things you have written down on your notes from your time of listening.
5) Ask the L-rd to send the angels He has assigned for cleanup/sanitation of your land, and ask Him to instruct those angels to break down every spiritual structure that is on your land that is not supposed to be there, and to clean up every defiled structure that He designed to be on your land and in your home. There might be times when the L-rd prompts you to specifically deal with something that is really messing with your spirit.
6) Then, ask the L-rd what structures he wants cleaned up and which structures he wants established on your property and in your house in the spiritual realm, and ask Him to build those. After praying this, stop and listen. Discern what you sense happening in the spiritual realm.
7) Listen and make a list of those things G-d wants to place on your land, and come into agreement with His intent and His actions. And make sure You are thanking Him and praising Him through this process. We often do not realize how charged land can be and G-d values not just us, but also where we dwell and with whom we dwell.
The Jacob Epilogue: What Happens When We Agree With G-d About Our Dwelling Place
On that last point, G-d valuing where we dwell, I would like to observe the following from Scripture.
G-d told Jacob in Genesis to “arise and go to DWELL in Bethel”. In other words, do not just sojourn, but put down roots in that hill country of Bethel. Once Jacob came into agreement with that instruction, Scripture is clear with a phrase that is not often used about what happened. It does not say the Fear of the L-rd came on those nations around Jacob, but rather the Terror of the L-rd came on those nations that surrounded Jacob, and they did not pursue Him. So, when you move to the place G-d has for you, and you make up your mind that youa re going to put down roots where G-d has for you, then He is going to go to work using resources you did not know He had access to in order to help you out.
“Unclean” in the Torah…a curious phrase. I am reading abot leprosy in Leviticus 13, and I think about the ways in which this word is use in the text.
We come to this word and we immediately think, “not clean”, or “dirty”, and as a result of that, we might go to “I am not good enough to appear in the presence of the L-rd”, and then leap to “I must not be good enough for the King’s presence.”
However, I do not think this train of thought fully encapsulates what the L-rd is trying to convey here. I do not think that our swiftness to leap to G-d’s rejection of us because of imperfections is really the right way to go about this.
Whenever I read a passage in Scripture as a pastor and a teacher, I start with the premises that G-d is good, G-d is love, RIghteousness and Justice are the foundations of His place of rule, and G-d desires a personal relationship and interaction with each of us.
That informs my reading, especially of things like unclean, which might tempt us to adjudicate G-d as unjust or unfair or somehow not right or mean-spirited. And thus we are left ot a place of futility. I do not think that is a helpful way of looking at Torah, and while Andy Stanley talked about unhitching our faith from the Tanakh/Old Testament….
I think a more appropriate place to go would be to unhitch our faith from sloppy, abridged, or merciless INTERPRETATIONS of the Tanakh/Old Testament that lead us to quickly pass judgment of the L-rd.
I do not believe “unclean” was used here to simply convey “dirty”, or “can’t come into G-d’s presence”, or “not good enough”, leading us to say G-d is mean or what-not.
And lest someone accuse me of attempting to negate the idea that “your sins have seperated you from G-d”, that is not what I am saying here. G-d is holy, but our idea of holiness often looks something like “free from sin”, rather than “weaving together principles to produce change”.
I think that “unclean” frequently refers to the idea of something that violates the singleness of our basic essence. And oftentimes, sickness, disease, and tragedy do not come into our life because we or our parents sinned. Often times, that comes into our life so that G-d may be glorified (Job 1-42; John 9:1-6).
Truly, it sounds like G-d wants to draw near to those who are broken or compomised (Luke 15:20), or unclean. So, our better solution is not the mindset that we need to stay away from G-d, but rather allow Him to run to us and we run to Him. Leviticus 13 is not about how we stay away from G-d, but how we protect ourselves and others when we are dealing with the junk that could threaten the stability of the larger group. And in the midst of the leper colony, we connect with the Father, who runs toward us.
Even while we are managing a sickness that can threaten our community, the holiness of heaven, with its weaving together of principles to produce change, desires to meet us where we are, outside the camp or inside the camp.
So, as you are looking at these passages, do not merely see them as “G-d doesn’t like me”. Rather, see them as “G-d has a purpose to connect with me in this season”.
So, when you read “unclean”, stop with the nonsense of thinking, “G-d refuses to receive me or look at me because I am a worm bastard sinner”. Think “G-d wants to clean me up and distill and purify my essence so that it is a single and cohesive whole.”
G-d is zealous that our essence be 100% your essence with nothing added…
The L-RD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days. As at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then she shall continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying. She shall not touch anything holy, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation. And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying for sixty-six days. And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the L-RD and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female. And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her, and she shall be clean.”
Leviticus 12 ESV
I think some people are convinced that the above chapter proves G-d is a masochist. I further think some are convinced the above chapter has zero compassion.
That word “defiled” often gets a weird rap in our modern translations.
So, three things.
1) What is defilement?
2) Why two different time periods?
3) What is redemptive about this passage? Is there any love, tenderness, mercy, kindness that Father presents that we may be missing?
I do not do interpretation without the Holy Spirit. I refuse to bring merely my natural or soulish brain and heart to the text of Scripture and read what is there on the page apart from expecting that Father has a redemptive reason for having had something recorded.
So, here are some thoughts and feelings, as best as I know how to communicate them by the reality of heaven, the benchmark of where is redemption and making all things new.
What Are Defilement and Holiness
Defilement is not just the presence of sin…
Many of us have a really thin idea of what constitutes defilement and holiness. We think of defilment as “marred by sin” and holiness as “absence of sin”.
And we mess it up royally in both cases.
Holiness is not the absence of sin.
Holiness’ inverse is unholiness, which is not the presence of sin, but the violation of reality and the cause-and-effect principles G-d has set into play at work in all that makes up reality.
I would contend that Holiness in the inverse is therefore not abstaining from sin, but building through the weaving together of principles rather than pariticipating or condoning their violation.
Holiness is the gestation process by which a zygote becomes a fetus becomes a baby.
Holiness is spending years working on observing the flight of birds, translating those observations into experiments with kites and gliders, while perfecting the techonology behind the bicycle and taking all of those and more principles and weaving them together into the airplane, while exercising greater concern for your fellow man than your machine, should it get damaged (thank you Wilbur and Orville for setting the tone by showing you cared about those with whom you worked over whether or not you could show how a man could fly and stay aloft). For more details on my parenthetical phrase hat-tipping the Wrights in a post about menstruation, see this post
I wonder if the reality of being unclean or defiled, as we have elsewhere tied it, is larger and has greater consequences than we think.
We look at defiled and we think “dirty”.
That is such shallow thinking.
When you look at holy, you often think “pure”, and not a whole lot else.
Sigh….
More to it than that.
Defilement is carried as a picture through Leviticus 10-20, and there has been an effective picture that Arthur has carried out through his material that I wish to bring out here for the purposes of exploiting this dynamic. To explain better what I mean.
The Alien Human Spirit…
Now, the dynamic here is that we have a single essence, as created by the L-rd, and He is zealous (not passionate) about seeing to it that our essence remains 100% our essence, and that there are no taggers-along or hitchhikers.
Same here.
Defilement is described as dirty, but there is way more to it than that.
It’s a sowing together of two essences that do not mix. Two materials. Two languages. Two crops. Two spirits.
And this picture is spread throughout Leviticus 10-20. With childbirth, crops, textiles, sexual relations, food. Forcing together two or more things that do not belong.
And in Leviticus 12, we are seeing the setting apart of a transition period where two things that left bed in close proximity to one another will become two unique essences.
So holiness is a weaving together of principles.
Unholiness is a violation of principles.
And defilement is more of a joining together of two or more disparate essences. Essences that do not belong together.
And yes, only a baby heard its mother’s heartbeat from inside the mother.
But we get this weird thing where some who do not see their unique essences as legitimate attempt to codependently share an essence and violate boundaries. And as a result, defilement ensues.
This is holy. Everything works, and you took care of your peeps over your project. And you fly into your destiny.
Sure, Daniels’ photograph is good and historic. but it doesn’t show the mosquitoes, nor does it show the heartache of what happened moments later, nor the unpredictable weather patterns present in the Prophet County of Dare, North Carolina.
Indeed, you push through and you give birth.
Why a Longer Time For Baby Girls and What is Redemptive About Leviticus 12? Get Out of the Churchy and Crunchy Interpretations
And when it is a girl, and you wait twice as long as for a girl (14 days past and then another 66 days), there is something the L-rd needs to impart to that little bundle of estrogen that will soon someday house a little child that cannot happen in 33 days.
Have you ever thought the reason for the longer waits for the girls might be because the L-rd knows helping a little girl to the cruel and hard reality of existence requires something that provides a shelter and safety.
Boys are ready to run after a few months and to hell with safety (see the above picture for proof of this). Testosterone says “to hell with your standard.”
Girls, though, might tend to need a larger space for grace and sensitivity as their more-connected corpus callosum needs to connect with those immediately near them.
Maybe the L-rd is giving the girls grace to work through stuff. And an opportunity for some free money.
Maybe He is giving space for the two ladies to learn how to seperate and distill the essence of a mother of the living from another mother of the living.
You are, in fact, creating and weaving together someone who will carry and bear children. It is better to protect a delicate vessel here with a longer period with their mother.
Perhaps the L-rd knew this.
Instead of us looking at it through the lens of “girls are more dirty or evil or wicked” (BARF! with that interpretation), maybe it should be “G-d needs a double portion because there are somethings that cannot be imparted in 33 days time)?
Did you ever think maybe, just maybe, G-d has some things, given He is a crock-pot-G-d, that need that extra time?
Maybe Daddy is taking longer because he is establishing this group of warriors who will be sufficient battle partners for His sons.
So, we know about the Spirit of Jealousy, which is a perversion of the work of the Father; the Victim Spirit, which is a perversion of the work of the Son; and the Mesmerizing Spirit which is a perversion of the work of the Holy Spirit.
But I received a note from a friend about being afraid of something that was potentially on the horizon, and that got me to thinking the Spirit of Fear is one of the big ones that we rarely mention in the Charismatic movement as much as we hear others, like the Jezebel Spirit, and it is often the one that lurks in the shadows.
We are used to hearing about the Jezebel Spirit attacking the prophets, and oh how wicked it is, and so on.
But I am convinced the Spirit of Fear is one of the underrated ones. It is a sleeper spirit (like a sleeper fantasy player, not that you want it to do well, though).
And I think the Spirit of Fear might be the spirit that, in the Fractal of Four (made up of the Trinity and the Kingdom) that perverts the work of the Kingdom.
Fear is something against which we react. It is not real. It is a counterfeit of wisdom, and it keeps us from building (power), reaching out (love), and staying sane and under the King’s authority (a sound mind, self-discipline).
It will neuter and spay and castrate you from doing what you were made to do, and it will cause you to jump to acting in ways that the King would not have you act.
Fear is one aspect of this coin. The other aspect is the Spirit of Indifference, which is the Horn of the Dragon that affects the Mercy (I have some thoughts on the Ten Horns). On the one side is not to act or make a distinction. On the other side is to act out of panic without deliberation or discernment or to act as if you think you are following Holy Spirit and miss what He is truly doing which is operating at a less hurried pace than Holy Spirit.
This janus-faced clown does not care if you are overdoing it or not doing it at all, he is content with your missing the mark in the present because you are so focused on the the future or so locked by your past that you mis the good things Father has for you now.
The way you become dangerous to this clown is by relentless connection the King as a Noble Subject and by becoming a builder in the kingdom. In my previous post on the Principle of Stewardship, I highlighted the dynamic of what happens when we steward the tools, materials, and gifts the King has given us to manage. Our attitude with these tools is important.
for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
2 Tim. 1:7
A spirit of Power….with all of the capacity and giftedness that the L-rd has given us.
A spirit of Love….that shows the godly dominion and relational governance Jesus Christ has installed into us.
And a spirit of a sound mind or self-control or self-discipline whereby Holy Spirit breeds in us the skill to govern ourselves so that our actions in poise and skill build the kingdom effectively and we follow Rule #1 in my family, which was printed on the Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy.
DON’T PANIC!
When you panic, or you freak out, or you become afraid, then you act foolishly.
Just ask me how I know.
My ex-wife threatened to abuse alcoholism if I did not marry her, then further threatened to take my sons away if I did not move with her to New England. My word, I understand what it is like to panic. I married the first time because of fear and I moved because of fear.
Then, when she told me in order to reconcile with her, I had to agree to a list of 22 items. I agreed to 21 of the 22 items on the list, but the last one, which was to accept a pharmeceutical solution to a particular problem, I refused, at which point….I felt something break in the spirit realm.
And she retaliated and that began an 6-year-long trek alone in the wilderness where I was accused by a slew of pastors and “leaders” not not being a capable, safe, or competent person to teach or pastor.
Gang, you must, in those instances, allow the Holy Spirit to bring you the power, love, and sound mind and self-discipline to your spirit, and to be fully clothed in those qualities, because a whole lot seeks to shake you to your core.
That spirit of fear seeks to create indifference and panic in you. Do not let it.
Be blessed at peace.
And I bless you with power….and love…and a sound mind.
“You decide if you’re oppressed. You deci-I know I’m going to get in trouble for saying this. I DON’T CARE. Like, you can decide to get better. You can decide to leave an abusive relationship. You can decide to work. You can decide to get up. You can decide that you’re not oppressed.”
-Nicole Arbour-
Hegemonic structures that are broken aside, injustice in broken systems; broken laws; broken institutions; and broken people aside, we have a series of wars against the Victim Spirit that we must win if we are to step into the fullness of what Jesus Christ has for us.
If you are a broken person, you have a choice to move into or toward a place of wholeness.
No options beyond this.
You might be called to see a structure torn down that is unjust, but you cannot tear it down only to replace it with a structure that favors this group at the expense of another group.
Gang, and specifically Servants, your design is critical, no matter who criticizes you.
I was watching a couple of clips from Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, and while I do not generally care for the Wingnut editing of Tolkien’s masterpieces, I am compelled to share when I think Jackson hits the right notes.
Saruman made a comment in An Unexpected Journey, which is easily covered over and possibly missed in Galadriel speaking to Mithrandir’s mind, in spitting on Radagast’s design. And Radagast is the archtypical Servant.
The comment is:
“It’s not that. It’s his excessive consumption of mushrooms. They’ve addled his brain and yellowed his teeth. I warned him, it is unbefitting one of the Istari to wander in the woods…”
Here is the relevant discussion:
Saruman, on the one hand, had an idea of what is befitting an Istari (Tolkien’s term for the Wizards), and comported himself in such a fashion.
Radagast, on the other hand, was given and drawn to serving nature and the animals, and that was his design, and it actually served the White Council well.
Sometimes we need that buddy who loves mushrooms and has “yellow teeth” and “addled brain” from the POV of some who simply do not get the Servant value.
Often times, gang, when the L-rd is speaking to us, he is going to use creation (Psalm 19, Isaiah 24) to communicate the reality to us. The spiritual will be reflected in creation and nature. And Servants are often going to be among those who clue in to the germane markers first.
If you denigrate and discount those who work with nature, and tell your tribesmates who is proper and improper for them, then the chances are really high you will cut off a valuable, though weird to some, barometer to the kingdom that would alert you clearly to one of the enemy’s stratagems, especially given the primary set of markers for Leviathan is the set of markers found in nature and creation.
Gang, I encourage you, those of you who have a friend in nature, to allow them and encourage them to connect deeply with nature.
And those of us who were in organizations like Boy Scouts, likely were so hardwired because we love nature and things like conservation.
Then the L-RD G-d said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper for for him.”
Genesis 2:18 (ESV)
There are two things I would like to discuss here. I will cover this phrase here and the never phrase of interest, “it is not good that the man should be alone;”, I will cover in a future post.
Now, some might be tempted to pull a word study from Strong’s Concordance on עֵזֶר, but I do not usually go into Strong’s for my material. Just personal preference.
So, עֵזֶר is variously translated as “helper”, “helper fit”, “helper suitable for”, “helpmeet”, and the like, I would like to consider a couple of dynamics as to what “helper” and “suitable” can mean.
I think of someone who chips into/brings their cards to the table in support of/brings their tools to/brings their expertise, experience, and design to bear on a situation.
I don’t merely think of someone who is subjugated to a divine lord here. I do not think of Adam as master and Eve as servant.
Rather, someone who is made to fit, custom-built, and capable of helping Adam solve the unique set of problems that he is faced with in the Garden, problems that require another set of hands, reins, heart, mind, and perspective.
Not your “feminine touch”, women, but your godly and womanly strength. Just as men need to develop testicular fortitude, so also women need to develop ovarian fortitude.
Given Eve will be the Life-Giver to all humanity, and Adam will be central to that life, it is mission-critical that they mesh together in design and partnering to solve certain problems.
Another one of the eyes in the “wheel within the wheel” gets brought to bear on the situation at hand.
Likewise, you women, generally are not designed to have a sausage-factory approach to the life of marriage, because your designs are not identical. Not all women are designed to be barefoot and pregnant, and not all woman that are designed for that are designed for that permanently.
Your job is not merely obedience to a prefabricated set of blueprints that some dude or chick created for you. It is to follow the UNIQUE set that was given to you.
And if you let someone tell you what a woman of G-d looks like and they are not plugged in to looking for your unique design with you, they will hand you a design that is of their own POV and you will move into a zone that is not yours with an assignment and a birthright that are not yours.
Ladies, gentleman, the Father knows precisely who you need to be married to.
Your job is not to get ahead or behind that understanding.
Your responsibility is to hunt for your design and walk in it.
If you find your niche, believe me, Father will partner you with someone you were DESIGNED TO BE WITH, if you will allow Him.
A massive problem is that so many people think with their sex organs and never think with their spirits about the kind of partner that will mesh with their design. And so based on a couple of traits they marry and are miserable.
That is not what Father made you for. You must allow your spirit to think and talk to you about what he or she wants in a partner. And then YOU partner with that.
Helpers are made to work in concert one with another. Believers, especially, are responsible to share fox holes one with another. Helpers manage together; they are in business together; they connect one with another; they have a common vision; they provide a safe place and covering fire for one another; and they have understanding, wisdom, and knowledge that complement one another. That is what the Father designed in Eden, and it is our responsibility, especially as the redeemed of the King, to carry his vision for a marriage forward.
It is not merely about whether or not you’re mesh well together when you knock boots, or because you emotionally feel good around one another.
The real question is whether or not together you can accomplish more redemptive Lee and then you can apart.
Calling someone [insert your chosen adjective here]phobic just because one follows the L-rd and chooses to practice and teach biblical standards of morality is intellectually lazy.
This nonsense of yelling ad hominem attacks “transphobic” and “homophobic” just because one believes what Scripture teaches about G-D’s design for human relationships when they also demonstrate love of people, regardless of their choices, instead of having an honest and frank discussion about the disagreements is the epitome of sloth and it is choosing to be half-blind and enslaved to the opinion of cancel culture.
If you cannot handle divergent beliefs but are willing to move along from the disagreement, that is one thing.
However, it is quite another thing to accuse people of a phobia because they refuse to bow the knee to your every whim…
and if they refuse to bow the knee, for you to stick them in a box that forces or mandates they remain silent. This has been your PSA.
TRIGGER WARNING: Victims of abuse and sensitive or wounded minds may be offended here.
Some people have already decided in their minds what they want this post to say, and so they might be doing the usual exercise of listening in order to construct a strawman based on what they think I am going to say, in order to knock it down.
So, for those who have made up their mind, you may move from this post to the next, or if you want to skip the offensive segment, then skip the following segment and move to the third segment.
Passages That Will Trigger Some
So, for a contextual overlay, let me requote a couple of passages.
Then I said, “woe is me, for I am undone.”
Isaiah 6:5
Possible way of translating this
Then I said “Holy shit! I am going to die!”
Or Ezekiel 23
“The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother. They played the whore in Egypt; they played the whore in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin bosoms handled. Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem. “Oholah played the whore while she was mine, and she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses. She bestowed her whoring upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them, and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone after whom she lusted. She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their whoring lust upon her. Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, after whom she lusted. These uncovered her nakedness; they seized her sons and her daughters; and as for her, they killed her with the sword; and she became a byword among women, when judgment had been executed on her. “Her sister Oholibah saw this, and she became more corrupt than her sister in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister. She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. And I saw that she was defiled; they both took the same way. But she carried her whoring further. She saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, wearing belts on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them having the appearance of officers, a likeness of Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. When she saw them, she lusted after them and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoring lust. And after she was defiled by them, she turned from them in disgust. When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses.”
Ezekiel 23:1-20 ESV
Verse 20, to say nothing about the profane way the rest of chapter 23 was written
Who were hung like horses and who ejaculated the same way…
And Paul, this time without the first transation
As for those who are agitating you, I wish they would cut their penises off
Galatians 5;12
And in another place
“For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as shit, in order that I may gain Christ”
Philippians 3:8 ESV
And let’s not forget that Baal was in the words of Elijah might have been taking a shit (1 Kings 18 can actually read like that), among other places, and Redemptive Gift Prophets like Elijah, and Exhorters were not know for their flowery, G-rated, sarcasm-free speech).
What the Song of Solomon Is Really Saying And How It May Set the Tone For Some Marriages
To say nothing about how raw the Song of Solomon actually reads, for all you allegorical types. Dew and dripping with myrrh and liquids in the Song are references to sexual fluids. And while the types and analogies of Scripture are at play in Song of Solomon, due to Ephesians 5, that does not supecede that the Song is a picture of the heights of intimacy between husband and wife, and it is really graphic. The “mountain of myrrh” is something the woman is saying about the man, and I will leave it at that.
The Real Point of Colossians 3:8
Paul was not saying get rid of the four-letter words from your mouth.
Paul was saying get rid of speech that abuses others.
That will be different for different people.
Our job, when we connect with others, is not to inauthentically put on a front to them, but rather is to be authentic. If that means some do not speak with four-letter words, then that is fine, and no I will absolutely not entertain a debate about whether or not that can be done.
The fact is that people need to learn how to be real and honest and sincere, because this generation can point out a fake believer 35 miles away. I do not care if you can clean up your language one whit, if you are still coming home drunk off your ass, and lying about everything else, and gaslighting everyone that you live with.
The problem is not our mouths, but the problem is our mouths, and it is not “keep away from this list of words that are contraband”.
We have enough issues with Christians trying to protect their reputations by avoiding certain words while also running in the direction of deception, abuse, gaslighting, and covering up rape, mistreatment, offense, and every other foul tarpit.
Our capacity to execute in the kingdom will be proven by the fruit of what we preserve.
If my sons or daughter tell the truth and they happen to voice their frustration by occasionally using a word, not to abuse but because they are frustrated or angry or dealing with injustice, but they never stops protecting the widow and the orphan and the fatherless boy who does not have a man in his life to show him what it means to be a kingdom man, then I sure better have the balls to coach them to a better place in all things and bless them for doing the right thing.
Now, where this turns troublesome is where the language turns abusive, and me and 100% of my friends and colleagues know when the language has turned the corner from frustration to abuse.
But voicing frustration and abusing people are two different things.
Paul and the balance of Scripture were vastly more concerned with the abuse factor than they were about whether one had successfully managed to avoid every bad word on the checklist.
Gang, it is time we do the same.
If we avoid the cuss words but run headlong into telling lies, weaving webs of deceit projecting an inauthentic image, and gaslighting others, we have royally screwed up.
So, as you are working with your kids, make sure you keep the holy checklist to a minimum and coach them to a place of being a whole man or a whole woman.
We need more of those whole people running around.
And we need more authenticity.
And we need fewer legitimacy crutches of “I am legitimate because I avoided all the bad words.”
You can walk around with a hundred gold-plated crutches, but that does not make you any less of a cripple.
Just some raw and open thoughts as I work at making my speech more fathering and less abusive myself.
And for Christ’s sake, let’s lay off the sanitizing of Scripture because we are embarrased in its portrayal of all things messy.
When the Holy Spirit touches human flesh, things are bound to get messy.
