The past few days have been… emotional. Strange.
It all started…well, it’s been going for weeks now. Little bits and piece here and there of information making re-evaluate what things really are, what life is. But what brought about the title of today’s post happened, started happening, Friday. I was sitting in my bed, YouTubing, and I came across this string of apocalyptic, eschatology, prophetic type conspiracy stuff that I often like to indulge in. And I clicked on one that was like, “A Warning to Christians.” So I’m like, “ooh, I want a warning!” Really thinking that whatever this dude was about to say it was going to be for some other Christians and not me. So he starts telling about this dream that he had and how at the end of it God spoke: ”I know thee: you’re in trouble. You never know me” (the guy’s Russian). So then he starts to explain about how a lot of us know about God b/c we’ve watched a lot of videos or heard a lot of sermons or read the Bible even, but we’ve never had an encounter with Him, and that a lot of us think we’re going to be with Him in the end, that we ‘re going to be the bride, but in the end He’s going to say “You never know me.” He even says stop entertaining yourselves on YouTube (!) and get on your knees or do what it takes to have an encounter with God.
So at first that’s hitting me, it’s hitting me like a sobering word, and I’m thinking, “this is serious.” I definitely got convicted about the YouTube part because, well, that’s what I was doing and what I had been doing all morning. I thought, “is this really me?” Then I started to think, “how can you think you’re the bride and then not be?” That started to mess with me. It’s one thing to believe you’re going to heaven but in the end be deceived. It’s one thing to think God will have something favorable for you at the end and be deceived. It’s one thing to think God won’t hold you accountable and be deceived. It’s a whooooooole other thing to believe you’re going to have an eternal groom at the end of your life only to find out you won’t. That blows.
So the word went further in and it started to be unsettling to me. I thought, “I need to pray and seek God.” I had to let the dogs out for Christina so I just stayed there since it was quiet and prayed and cried. I was like, “Jesus are we cool?” I tried to be heartfelt and lifting up praise, then I laid down and tried to pray some more but fell asleep (fail). After that I came home and re-watched what I heard, to see if I was feeling more peaceful, or maybe if I was hearing it differently. I wasn’t. I didn’t. Then my roommate came in and asked if I wanted to tag along with her while she went shopping and I said, “ok!” I talked a little bit about some things God was dealing with me about, but I ended up feeling more grieved by the end of it. I couldn’t find peace. I just thought, “what is there for me to do? how do I get out of this?”
I came home, not sure what to do. I thought, “the guy said get on your knees, should I try that?” For a second I thought, “that won’t do anything in itself.” Years of conditioning from preaching. I got on my knees for a bit then I just laid my whole self on the ground and wept. Not cried, wept. I just felt so sorry and so misled and in the wrong place. I remembered the preacher John Mulinde that spoke at IHOP and carried a similar message, after God dealt with him about his ways. I tried to remember all the times God had said He was pleased with me, through prophecies and such. But it wasn’t that. I wasn’t worried about if God was “okay” with me. It was the idea that He could say that He never knew me. When I’d prayed earlier I confessed, “I didn’t know there was supposed to be more than this! Otherwise I would’ve come sooner!” And it was true! People talked about encounters and things that happened to them, but I just thought it had something to do with the favor or calling they had with God, or the result of some drastic measure they had taken through prayer and fasting, or the situation warranted it. I didn’t know we were all supposed to experience this. I always grew up understanding God. He was never a problem for me, so I just grew in knowledge about Him over time. Sure there was a moment where I decided to really “get serious” about God, and I was sure I was saved, but was I the bride? Is this really a select group of people? And shouldn’t the bride be able to speak boldly about her groom? In fact, isn’t that all she can really talk about and focus on? I certainly wasn’t there yet, though I now understood that there was nothing more I wanted in the world.
I suddenly thought about doing something drastic, some drastic measure to show God that I was serious about wanting this encounter and starting this relationship as more than an abstraction. I thought, “I’ll fast and pray and cut out everything until I get an answer.” And the thought crossed my mind, clean out your dvr! Immediately followed by the thought, “Okay now you’re just going off the deep end.” lol In all fairness, I’d seen my share of similar foolishness growing up and like the literal “getting on my knees,” I didn’t think it would solve anything in itself. It would just make me pissed when I go to watch something. But the notion started to grow, until I was convinced that it would make a difference. What’s more, I started to get a little frightened at how tightly I was holding on to my tv shows vs. being the bride of Christ. So I got up from the floor, went over to my tv, turned it on, and started to delete. At first I was going to try and selectively pick out those things that I thought were the most counterproductive, but then I realized there was no way I could do that. I’d have to get rid of it all.
That’s when I started to get really emotional. I couldn’t believe how hard it was. I was disgusted, I was embarrassed. I just kept saying, “how did it get this bad? how did it get this bad?” Meanwhile my inner voice was saying, “OMG you JUST got the series finale of Oprah that re-aired and I can’t believe you just ERASED it. Really?!” And kicking myself for not watching it last night or this morning. ”You’re not gonna just STOP watching Breaking Bad, right? I mean… you’re seven episodes in.” At this point I didn’t know if it actually was going to do anything, I just know I felt wretched. And then my inner voice was like, “that’s okay, there’s netflix, there’s Amazon, Burn Notice was getting kind of lame anyway” and all this other stuff. My head was throbbing from all the crying of the day and I felt ill. I called my mom. I told her the stuff that was happening to me, as incomplete as it was. All she could do was re-assure me. I don’t remember what the rest of my night was like, only that it was tv-less, and that I’m sure I tried to pray or some such nonsense. Oh yeah, my headache started to get so bad that I decided to take aspirin, though I was considering letting myself endure the pain, but I had a meeting to go to that night and felt bad enough that I didn’t think I would make it there. But I did feel good enough to go, and at the end of it I just came home and went to bed.
The next day I got up in the same frame of mind, feeling slightly better but still contemplative and wanting to “seek God,” inventing that as I went. Mostly I just thought of what else I could get rid of. It started to dawn on me that the only real thing I can give God that is of any value to Him is my will. Shall I call Him Lord? Son of the Most High? Great, everyone does that, or will do that anyway. Demons do that. Shall I praise Him? Big whoop, he deserves it. And if I didn’t, all of creation would. Should I read His word, consult Him on every matter, accept His blessings and grace and favor? yawn. All that I could gain based on His goodness alone. The only thing that He can’t already do, that He’s not already in control or possession of is me. My will, my Self. I had to find more ways to give Him my Self. The dvr thing was a gesture, an invention of mine, not something He was telling me to do. More on that later. But I ended up finding out that I’d hidden quite a bit of treasure there. Though it made me sad, I knew I was giving Him something of value, something I hadn’t done up to now. On the second day, I still hadn’t heard or felt anything particularly conclusive, and I was still holding out for this encounter I now was convinced that I had to have in order to resolve this. By that afternoon I began to seriously eye my music.
End of part I
Let me say this: you want to watch the last episode of Oprah. It changed my life. I actually wasn’t an Oprah fan until I watched it. I have the transcript if you’d like to read it. I don’t care if one thinks she is the anti-christ, ever single person that wishes to do something great needs to experience what she had to say.
Looking forward to part 2.