It was like he pushed his boot through the book he wrote, the one I was reading, and kicked me in the rear.
Ouch!
“What did you do that for?” I asked the book accusingly.
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God is very different from who I thought He would be.
I’m a lot different from who I thought I would eventually become when I first started longing to know more about God, too.
At Sunday school or elsewhere when we first heard about God, He often appeared as a “turn the other cheek” when an enemy tried to smack Him kind of a guy.
And since we are made in His image, I had a vague impression that the ultimate goal of the spiritual life is to become the kind of person who lies down so people can wipe their feet on us.
If that’s the case, then I was blown away by what God spoke into the recesses of my heart that day. God, are you who I think you are?
Of course not,
is His inaudible answer, and in his fury at the audacity of the question, He erupts as a violent volcano, splashing the earth with ashes of his love.
A volcano . . . erupting . . . love? I can explain because I am a mini-volcano formed in His image. I haven’t exploded yet. But I can feel the rumble, and I know it is coming.
And he is edging me on.
Don’t be afraid of your anger,
He spoke gently into the recesses of my heart recently. He comforted me in empathy, the way my dad would rub my back when I was a child, just before I would throw up. You know that feeling just before you are sick when you remember you will feel much better to have the bile removed from inside of you? That’s how I have been feeling.
I had been covering up the threatening volcanic eruption with my best church bonnet and long white Sunday dress.
Like the person who travels to a volcano that threatens eruption, and pours a bit of water, a shovel full at a time, on top of the huge mountain to pacify it a little bit, I placated my growing anger.
I shoved the equivalent of a baby pacifier into my mouth at church, turned aside, and listened to relentless chatter. Another shovelful of water, please. Or she’s a gonna blow.
My anger terrifies me.
I once climbed an active volcano in Costa Rica, la Rincon de la Vieja. Tourists would never have been allowed that close to an active volcano in ultra-safe Canada. They wouldn’t have been allowed within miles of that place. And as I stood at the top of that mountain and looked around, I was shocked at the scale of the devastation.
An entire mountainside of bare rocks, with the jungle forest beginning abruptly in the valley far below.
Yet scientists know that after the initial devastation, volcanic ash enriches the soil with its dense nutrient load.
Soil from this ash produces some of the lushest plant life on earth.
So as God rubs my back, gently telling me it’s okay to be sick, I realize that holding in my anger only makes me feel sicker.
At that moment, the clerk at the checkout counter seemed to silently ask me as she wrapped my package with a smile, “Would you like modern-day slavery with that?¨
And my anger, rightly expressed as love, compels me to take one small step in a direction that opens the door to better alignment with my true identity.
And this anger, no longer stuffed inside but rightly expelled as love, contains the soil that can nourish the seed of hope.
Does anyone dare despise this day of small beginnings?
The Message
She sat on the grass, picking wildflowers.
She danced alone in that grassy place.
Free.
My choice is you, God, first and only.
The Message
And now I find I’m your choice!
You set me up with a house and yard.
And then you made me your heir!
I waited in the lineup, laughing.
Then I danced on the speakers at the bar.
Free.
Love me, hold me, ‘cause I’m free to do what I want any old time. And I’m free to be who I choose any old time
The Soup Dragons and Junior Reid
What is true freedom, then?
The freedom we danced and sang of when I was a youth at the bar left many of us imprisoned, wrapped so tightly in our bondage that joy dissipated.
The constraints God defines for us bring us to that grassy place where true freedom and joy are found.
And I danced alone, outside in the field, to the music God sang in my heart again this morning.
Your God is present among you . . .
The Message
Happy to have you back, he’ll calm you with his love
and delight you with his songs.
And so, what is best for the woman, dear friend?
Come.
I beckon you to this side of the fence, where true freedom and joy are found.
Have you found your dancing shoes yet?
Put them on! Come – let’s dance together, friend!
Joy awaits!
What are you waiting for?
God longs to delight in you, too, as you put your hand in his and follow Him on a journey.
The term Hephzibah is Hebrew for “my delight is in her.”
You’ll be called Hephzibah, my delight
The Message
Come and dance with us!
Instead of insisting on freedom to create spiritual reality, shouldn’t we be seeking to discover it and disciplining ourselves to live according to it? . . .
In many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions.
Timothy Keller, The Reason For God
It was like he pushed his boot through the book he wrote, the one I was reading, and kicked me in the rear. Ouch!
“What did you do that for?” I asked the book accusingly.
I had been sitting poolside, enjoying my martini as usual, when this incident occurred.
Let me explain. Ahem . . .
In the book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer he spoke of learning only recently about the extent and horror of modern-day slavery.
Yeah, I watched the movie Amazing Grace, recounting the true life story of John Newton, a slave ship owner turned religious covert, turned major influence on the abolitionist movement. I yawned, turning the page. I know about all that slavery stuff.
The next page mentioned enormous slave ships in Bangladesh and Vietnam right now. This was ringing a vague bell in the back of my mind somewhere. I sat up a little.
We all know something about modern day slavery but how curious had I allowed myself to become?
I had heard someone talk about this stuff. But when? And who? And the details?
It was a bit fuzzy.
I took another sip of my pina colada, did some research on my own, and then continued reading my book.
A few years years ago, I was shocked and deeply disturbed when I learned about the dark underbelly of globalization. I had no clue that a huge chunk of items in my home were made unjustly, if not with full on human trafficking and child labor.
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – John Mark Comer
I slammed the book shut angrily. “You know, I’d rather just not know!” I yelled at the book, closed at my feet. The others lounging at the pool looked at me curiously.
I continued the rest of the conversation in my own brain, which is a much saner way to get mad at someone who doesn’t know you exist.
“And what am I supposed to do anyway?” I yelled at him accusingly. “I live in Canada, thousands of miles away! Am I going to row my oar boat to Burma and tell all those scary guys with guns to let their thousands of enslaved people go, the ones that bring them piles of cash every day?”
No.
So I readjust myself in my lounge chair again and pour myself a Bloody Mary. Time for a more mindless book. Time to relax. Maybe I should spend time browsing Amazon for cute shoes to get my mind off things.
But when I had emptied that drink and purchased a pile of cute heels in various shades of pink, I picked up the book “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry” again.
I’m Type A, and if I don’t get a checkmark beside “read X book,” then my self-esteem may plummet to who knows where.
I refilled my drink with a more potent brew, black coffee this time, and sat up a bit, ready to defend myself against an unexpected blow of the author’s hand smashing through the book.
. . . I realized a different outfit every day was kind of ridiculous. I was also made aware of the injustice of the fashion industry, which made buying new clothes a total pain in the neck. So I cut it in half and went down to three outfits per season… I love each outfit. They were . . . ethically made and environmentally sourced and for the first time I can ever remember, I have extra money in my clothing budget . . .
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry – John Mark Comer
Another bell was ringing somewhere. I, too, love to buy items that I know are ethically produced.
I almost only buy jewellery at 10,000 Villages or stores with a similar ethic. And check out the stuff I bought recently!* Beads are made from recycled Saris and support women artisans in India.
My favorite clothing store, besides Value Village, is Blue Sky, a fair-trade company.
But I also buy other stuff.
After reading about John Mark Comer’s choices, I felt like wearing a Blue Sky outfit the next day. Blue Sky from head to toe.
And I felt better about myself, more whole, more aligned to the values that God envelopes me with when He pours out His love on me.
I felt more like a bar of Christmas chocolate (because who doesn’t sometimes compare themselves to chocolate?) that is SOLID chocolate all the way through.
Biting into the kind of Christmas chocolate that is only a chocolate shell, that is hollow, is not quite as satisfying.
Maybe I want to buy people more SOLID chocolate bars this Christmas, more often, the kind that has the same taste all the way from beginning to end.
This feels symbolic of something important, something that makes me like myself even more.
Blogpost Footnotes
*I’m wearing clothes from Blue Sky in this photo. (Yes! I know you don’t care but I always wanted to be the kind of person who had to put a footnote telling others what kind of clothes I’m wearing in photos so I can feel important. Don’t shatter my illusions of grandeur!)
Restoring Life 