Reflections of an Election Heart, Round Twelve

  Streams of tears run down my eyes
because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
My eye flows unceasingly,
without stopping,
 until Adonai looks down
from heaven and sees.
 My eye torments my soul
because of all the daughters of my city.
Lamentations 3:48-51 (Tree of Life version)

***

Back in January (2017) I wrote Reflections of An Election Heart, Round Nine. Those who read it are aware of the what, when, why and wherefore’s of my attendance at downtown Spokane’s Women’s March on January 21.

Holy cow. In some circles I received ‘attagirl’ and ‘you’re the best’ affirmations, and in other circles you’d have thought (and some do) that I committed the unpardonable sin and am forevermore defiled, yea and amen.

Two more Reflection posts, parts Ten and Eleven, followed. I then took off nearly four months from the ring of the Reflections of an Election Heart series to reassess the lay of the land. It’s left me both heartened and saddened.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I think this greeting card pretty well sums up how I view myself from the Lord’s perspective.

Some days you gotta put your feet in your big girl boots and go walk the very ground of the city whose hearts you claim you want to claim for the Lord.

Because I did I also got stomped by other’s boots, and it wasn’t the ones I was walking next to on a 34-degree day in the dead of winter. It was the ‘boots’ of some of my fellow Christian brethren and sisteren who didn’t ‘resist’ and now politely abide me or have cut off communication with me. All I believe I was guilty of was figuring on three things:

• Spokane is my city
• I am a woman
• As a woman I hold in my heart several things for which I showed up on the outside what I feel strongly about on the inside

Too, I figured that those who know me would see in some small part where my heart is and why I attended. Imagine my sad realization that the lot of us are not much understood, are we? Judged, yes. Understood, no. Mostly for the lack of simply conversing with each other. Observe with our eyes and stick our fingers in our ears.

If we do that while in a spiritual boxing ring, guess what? We’re gonna get smacked by what’s in front of us.

All I can say is the Lord knew what He was talking about when He said “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth.”

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:8

It’s churchdom that has a tendency to get all offended when someone actually practices what they preach.

Somewhere along the line Christianity has become religiously sanitized. Have we forgotten we were told to go out into the world to be witnesses of the very Christ-life living and operating within us? To quote scripture, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” ² If we agree that we live in a sin-sick world, then why do we renounce and trounce on those carrying healing light who walk into the midst of the ones who need it?

Please don’t get me wrong. If you chose not to participate in your city’s version of the Women’s March, that is fine. You have your reasons for not doing so; I have mine for why I did. But goodness, why the unholy trinity of Judge, Jury and Executioner? Not only of ones who attended that name the Name of Christ, but also the millions that marched who don’t want our religious version of a Savior?

Christ is a PERSON, people. But then again, that requires relationship in the midst of the boxing ring; with the Lord Jesus Christ and with those caught in the battle for their very souls. Sometimes that is us too.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers,
against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12 (underline added)

The next verses describe the full armor of God that we are to put on. Well, there’s a reason we’re to put it on. I am well aware that Ephesians 6:12 is the power list of evil forces arrayed against the Church. We must resist a like manner of retaliation or we play into the hands of the one who delights in stealing, killing and destroying.

And Saul was there, giving approval to his (Stephen’s) death.
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem,
and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.
Acts 8:1 (comment & emphasis added)

A whole host of scripture comes to mind – scattered seed, light that is not hidden, salt that need remain salty…

Before Saul became Paul, the Church of that day was scattered as a result of persecution. Jesus had already been quoted and the believers reminded in Acts 1:8 of what they were to be about and where they were to go.

On the flip side in Acts 8:1, Saul the Religious not only observed but approved the death of Stephen the Believer. The outcome was that what the Church did not do in glad spontaneity was achieved by God’s driving those same ones via severe trouble into the regions He intended for them in the first place.

There is fear. Then there is the fear of the Lord. There is ‘without sin.’ Then there is purity and righteousness.

It is time we learn the difference and drop the rocks. ³

Said the preacher to the choir…

~ Gracefully Free

¹ Acts 1:8 │² Luke 5:31 │ John 8:7