It's Love. It's What I Do

This year has been a doozie. If one thing isn’t falling apart, another thing is exploding. Things, plans, people, and ideas going up in great big giant flaming balls of stupidity and lack. Most of the time I can just roll with the punches, walk it off, and move on to the next minor emergency, but lately that hasn’t been so easy to do.

The stuff breaking down is one thing. Fix the tractor, replace the air conditioner, and buy a new phone. It’s life. It’s what you do. Plans falling apart and dreams not coming true that hurts, but you get up and make a new plan, dream a new dream. It’s life. It’s what you do.

But the people, oh the people, that one is rough.

If you know me, you know that I am pretty good at separating you from me, my life from yours, and the things you chose from the things I want. It’s life. It’s what you do. But then there are people that you love, that you let in so deep that there is no separation. Their life is your life, and the things they chose are things that are now a part of your world, for better or worse. And when you watch the fuse to their life ignite, all you can do is duck and cover because you know this is going to hurt.

The temptation in these moments is to cut ties, to run away, and deny them the right to be a part of your world at such a deep level. God knows it would be easier. And I honestly find more than a morsel of comfort in the fact that even he felt this way.

If you don’t remember the story, it goes something like this –

God had just demonstrated his undivided love and devotion to the Children of Israel. He does amazing and wondrous things to secure their freedom when they turn into snot nosed little brats. Here he’s rained terror and destruction down on the Egyptian nation that had dared to abuse those he loved, and they are dying to go back to their abusers. And on the particularly rough days, I find his solution rather appealing:

“I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I make a great nation of you.” Exodus 32: 9, 10

Obviously, God did not carry through with this threat, but the point is this is his emotional response the situation. It is him being so honest about the feeling he has that it is shocking!

I think that so often in the Christian community we are told that if we really love someone you will never feel anger over their actions. We are told to forgive and forget, deny those oh-so-human emotions, and recognize that you have not say in the lives of others. Anger, we are told, is selfish and shows our need to control, but I don’t think that’s always the case.

Maybe my interpretation of this event is skewed, but I don’t think that God was angry just because people dared to worship another god. (In fact, that wasn’t what was going on at all. Check this out to see the story behind the story.) He’s not that selfish. I think his anger was the result of watching these people do something that he knew would hurt them. He knew the consequences of their actions far better than they did, they had been warned, and given the tools to make wise decisions. And instead of heeding his words, they acted out of their own wisdom and based their actions on the fear in their hearts.

Okay, so we aren’t God. I get that. I know that he has rights and privileges that are way beyond our paygrade, but I think there is something to be learned here – actually, there are a lot of somethings to be learned here, but let’s just focus on one.

God was angry because he loved those snot nosed brats, they were his snot nosed brats, and he was not going to let anyone needlessly hurt them – including themselves. His anger was proof of a love that can only be kindled by those you are passionate for, a love that demands the best for those we call our own, and a love that refuses to allow anyone to be less than who he created them to be.

Yet, even in this, he did not act in anger. He acknowledged his pain and frustration. He had a conversation with someone who also had a vested interest in the wellbeing of these people. He allowed them to receive the consequences of their actions, he continued to speak truth over them, setting boundaries and refusing to be okay with their self-destructive ways, and then when they came to their senses, he renewed his promise to be there by their side through the battles that lay ahead.

I wonder how many of us need a friend who will not let anyone hurt us – including ourselves? How many of us can use a friend who will become enraged at our own self-destructive tendencies and will go toe-to-toe with us when we go full blown idiot in our lives?

And I wonder how many times the person who almost stepped up was told that they had no right to be angry? No right to have a say in the lives of those they love? How often have people been told that this type of passion for another is a sin? So they step back, cut ties, and remove themselves from a relationship that is too painful to bear in silence and believing that to speak up would be improper and unloving by the standards of so many.

I don’t want to be that friend. I want to be the one who makes you mad occasionally, who sets you off for calling it like it is, and hurts your feelings with honesty. I may yell. I may scream. I may call your mama, daddy, or the cops if that is what it takes to keep you safe, but I never want to be the friend who was more concerned with being polite than I was in protecting your heart. So if you were on the receiving end of my harsh words over the past few months, know that this – It’s is love. It’s what I do.

Cake, Field Surgeons, and Prophecy

I had to give a prophetic word last night. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t glamorous. In fact, it was rather painful, and I felt rather sick the whole time I was speaking.

In our Christian culture, the gift of prophecy is highly coveted. It’s like the icing on the Christian cake for most people. After all, who wouldn’t want the prestige that comes with being the person in the know?

The answer is the person who is really in the know. The one who sees past the facades and understands the prophecy isn’t about giving people the warm fuzzies, making empty promises of health, wealth, and prosperity, or even the promise that all things work together for good in your life, so hang in there. Now, I know that somewhere along the way you were told that the gift of prophecy was given for encouragement and exhortation, that negative or judgmental words have no place in a New Testament church, and if it isn’t building you up then the prophetic word given is invalid.

The thing is, I read all through my Bible, and I can’t find that anywhere. And if I take Paul’s word about all Scripture being profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16), and keep in mind that Paul had to be speaking of the Hebrew Scriptures because the Christian Bible did not yet exist, I am faced with the very real responsibility to measure the prophetic in accordance to the examples within what we call the Old Testament. I am also forced to take Paul’s own words into account – teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Not uplifting, not positive, not motivational, and certainly nothing about warm fuzzies.

Is this carte blanche permission for people who operate in the prophetic be jerks? Of course not, but you have to admit that the majority of the prophetic words recorded – even the prophetic words of Jesus - aren’t all sunshine and glitter. They were designed to confront sin, and they were designed to jar us from our complacency and passive justification of sinful actions in our own lives. Is there hope and promise to be found within prophetic words? Yes, but only after repentance, only after obedience, and only after we bow our hearts to the Lordship and authority of our God.

And what happens when you confront sin in someone’s life? They go stupid on you. Well, most of the time anyways. They deny that you have a right to speak, they condemn you for judging, and they hate you for your lack of compassion. At this point, all sorts of wonderful and amazing things can transpire for the one operating in a prophetic role, they can lose friends, they can family, they can be physically or verbally attacked by the ones they love, and they can be ostracized from the community that once valued their presence. Don’t believe me, look it up. Read the story of Joseph whose brothers sold him to slavery because he dared speak the prophetic vision God gave him. Read the accounts of Jeremiah who feared for his life and was left to rot in a cistern. Read about Elijah who hid in fear from the rage of queen.

None of this happened because they were promising warm fuzzies and financial success to the ones that God commanded them to go to. It happened because they dared to speak an uncomfortable truth. Truth that struck at the core of the listeners’ sense of self and security. Truth that would no longer allow the listener to walk in ignorance and forced them to move forward either in brokenness for their sin or in willful rebellion against God. No one wants to face that, I don’t even like facing that, and I hold no illusion about how painful it is to have to stand before another stripped bare of your own hypocrisy. It hurts, and it is humiliating in the beginning. I know, I’ve been on the receiving end more than once and every bit of selfish pride rose up in protest at being called out on my own sin.

What is hard for us to understand is that when someone is operating in an authentic gifting of the prophetic, there is no sense of superiority in it. There is only brokenness and pain on behalf the one to whom we speak. We are moved forward not because we wish to wound. We do so because we feel the outright misery of the broken relationship they have with Father, and everything within us yearns for their restoration. We move with compassion that must sometimes be brutal in order to be heard and so that message is not watered down or compromised. In my mind, it something akin to being a field surgeon, knowing that the procedure needed to save the patient inflicts more pain than the original wound, but must be done if they are to survive. So you close your ears to the screams and you pack that bloody wound with truth until the flow is staunched. Because mercy that brings death to another, physically or spiritually, is not mercy to anyone but yourself.  

For me that is the hardest part, knowing that my words will hurt and knowing that once the truth has been revealed I have relinquished all perceived and delusional ideas of control in the situation. From there it is up to the one to whom I sent to respond, to reject or to receive, to act or to deny. For me that is often the darkest time, because I know that they are now responsible for a truth that can no longer be rejected out of ignorance. I have to fight my tendency to worry that my words were too harsh or too heavy, and it is why I often hesitate when I should have been quick to obedience. And why I can point to list of moments when I was the broken one or they were further injured because I allowed fear of consequence for myself and others to keep me silent.

No, operating in the prophetic is not sweet or pretty. It never was, and I don’t believe it ever will be. Certainly, there are moments when you are allowed to participate in breakthrough and revelation that will change a person’s life, but those are rare and easily forgotten. For one who truly walks in the prophetic perceives the effects of sin as few others do, and their hearts break for the world around them. Yes, we hear from God but when you have been confronted by the light of holiness, the darkness that surrounds us only deepens. And when you have tasted the perfection of his presence, the brokenness of the world is only more tragic.