God is Bigger Than Your Shit

Zombies are popular these days. Maybe you’ve noticed?

Movies, TV Shows, books…there’s even this: a 5K race in which participants are chased by people dressed as zombies.

On the treadmill the other day, I was laughing to myself as I thought how being chased by zombies would almost certainly improve one’s pace and ability to reach the finish line. I was thinking about the discipline it takes to get up at 4:45 and go work out, in the deep dark of not-yet-morning, in the stillness of a town that is only beginning to make the ascent back into wakefulness, and how that determination has spilled over into other areas of my life; a pleasant truth I did not expect.

And my Father, He spoke to me.

Yes, about zombies.

There is a zombie I flee every morning when I force myself out of my warm, soft bed and out into the cold of January. It’s scarier and more dangerous than any flesh-eating denizen Hollywood could manufacture.

It doesn’t live under my bed or lurk in the shadows of the night; it dwells within me.

This diseased body of death that decays a little more with each passing day…that flesh that clamors and demands and grows in strength as I coddle it and coo over it and give it every damn thing it desires until I become one of the walking dead.

When it is bloated and satiated with carnality, it shuffles through each day, unseeing and ungrateful for His manifold grace. It staggers past my children, dealing without doting. Looking without seeing. Satisfied with outward appearances. Unconcerned with the eternal.

My heart beats passionless and tired. Outrageous injustice sparks no reaction. Why bother? It’s a lost cause. Soapboxes require energy to climb, and I’ve got just enough to keep on shambling.

I have sat long and hopeless in the company of this zombie. I have listened to its lies, whispers carried upon musty grave-breath, of condemnation and futility. Worse, I have attributed some of those words to God Himself. I have given my brain over to it, and it has dined with relish upon it.

It’s terrifyingly easy, with enough practice.

But this is a new day for me. This can be a new day for you. No matter what. No matter how long you have sat in decay and ruination. No matter how loud the whispers have become. It’s a new day. A day to shake off the zombie. A day to kick him in his funky, crumbling teeth. A day to rise up.

Rise up and stop nursing the thing. Deny it something. It will be hard. It won’t let go easily. But eventually, it will. It will shrink. The clamor of the flesh will die down. His voice will start to penetrate. You will hear Him, cheering you on as you run, and rejoicing over you with singing.

And the zombie will lay in pieces behind you.

1 Cor. 9:24-27

In the early morning, my toddler son awakens. In the span of time it takes him to rub his sleepy eyes and yawn, his diaper has accomplished the purpose for which it was created.

The smell of it accosts me as I lift him from his crib. NASTY. Yet he is so soft, and sweet, and warm from the sunkissed world of his dreams that I do not flee straight to the changing table, holding him at arms’ length. I simply have to cuddle him, smother those cheeks with kisses, and squeeze him hard before the work begins.

And so it is with our Creator God. Though we reek, and are foul, yet He loves us. In spite of the shit we wallow in, He sees us as a delight, for the simple reason that we are HIS. I don’t care how rank my son is, I will not turn away in disgust; in fact, the grosser he is, the more quickly I respond with water and soap.

Helpless to change his condition, he needs caring hands to do what he cannot. Wipe, dry, anoint, re-dress.  Left to his own devices, he would redden, chap, blister, infect.

Stop pretending you’re fine when the fumes from your load threaten to overwhelm you. Stop trying to change it yourself; you’re just making it worse. Bring it to the Father and let Him take care of it.

He might have to strip you bare.

It might take some time.

But He is faithful, and won’t stop until the job is done.

1 John 1:5-9

What business do I have putting the word “God” alongside the word “shit”, anyway? Am I just trying to get attention; to be offensive?

Shit has been an offensive word for hundreds of years. Apparently people don’t particularly care for a word that describes something that only other folks do.

A simple study on the etymology of the word is quite enlightening.* An Old English word dating from the 14^th century, its root is the verb scitan, which means simply “to split, divide, or separate”.  Related to shed, it implies that what is not helpful or useful is, of necessity, jettisoned.

Actually, what I DO think is funny (not haha-funny but weird-funny) is that we shrink from calling things what they are. We are sultans of spin, experts at euphemism, and we will do almost anything to polish up our poop and proclaim it presentable.

But I’m tired of it. I know what shit smells like, and I don’t care how elegant you think yours is.

I’m full of shit, I admit it. It weighs me down, makes me sick, permeates my cells. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust? Try manure to manure. That’s me.

But I don’t want to get my shit together. I want to get rid of it entirely. I want to be purged, to be set free from the foul and fetid and festering. To walk in newness, and life abundant.

And that’s what I’m writing about here. Just my own experiences in the pain of purging. And the victory as God takes me from glory to glory…no matter how gory that glory is.

If you stick around, I can’t promise that I’ll always be the good little Christian. But I can promise that I will always be honest, at least as much as a person who writes anonymously can claim to be.

I’m feeling itchy, and antsy, and fed up with the constriction that confines my growth.

I’m ready to shed.

Mark 7: 14-23

*if you’ve heard that shit was an acronym for ship high in transit, here’s some helpful debunking information For more etymology info, try this .