To Die for Love

So you want to be a Christian nation?

We are due for a reckoning. We need a reckoning. A “Christian” nation that revels in ego, cruelty, greed, hypocrisy, arrogance, and aggression deserves whatever befalls it. How did we get here and how can we change it? As I am a part of this culture, I am responsible for as well as infected by it. If I think I am above it, I am the Pharisee that cries, “Thank God I am not like these people.” I am a tree in this forest. If we sit in the pews and call out others, demanding accountability and reform, we must start at the door of our own hearts. Culture is nothing more than the aggregate of each of us.

How many of us cry “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” and mean it? After all, we are so much better than those guys. Are we not just as driven by our own egos, agendas, and self interest? You can gaslight yourself but you can’t gaslight God. If your desire is to be His, He must show you who you are so He can show you who you were meant to be. You will have to confront your naked self in order to recognize and dismantle the facades that keep your performance convincing but your soul in shackles. There are so many varieties of shackles. So He must lead you into a wilderness of such proportion that your defenses can no longer spare you or fool you, the spackle will not hold. You will feel like you are dying because you are. Nothing less is required for your soul’s emancipation from the patterns that generate the personal and collective misery that plagues us. If no less than Jesus himself had to experience the ravages of the desert and testing of his faith, how much more do we require the bitter scouring of the wilderness? We walk in darkness until we are transformed. There is no shortcut, no lite version, no get out of jail free card.

The wilderness is not of our design. God alone knows the precise circumstances that will bring us to the end of ourselves. He knows the destination and the duration. No one can go there with you. There is no exit. However long you are there is longer than you believe you can endure. You believe the night will never end. You will think God has forgotten you. You will think that God is punishing you. You will be stripped of every device you have relied on for direction and meaning. Embrace it. When you finally and utterly submit your will to the wilderness, you will arrive at ground zero. And find that ground zero is the absolute love and mercy of God. That is the endgame. You will never see anything the same way again. You are no longer your own, you belong to God, you belong to everyone. You will stand among your brothers and your enemies and pray, “Father forgive us, for we know not what we do.” And that leaven will leaven the whole loaf.