God is Bigger Than Your Shit

Navigating this life can be hard.

Hazards lie all around, like land mines; the path is riddled with them. My five senses find no end of ways to sin, to descend into the depressions to the left and to the right. Many of these pits are labelled clearly: anger! lust! apathy! fear! self-pity! Their bright carnival signs, flashing lights, and enticing music bely their grim titles. There is a stench of death and decay coming from their depths.

Nevertheless, I often leap into them. Sometimes with narrowed eyes and set jaw, I dive in, determined to satisfy the clamor of my soul. Sometimes I walk slowly, considering the cost and knowing the consequences. Other times I am simply looking the other way and I stumble heavily, finding myself at the bottom quite suddenly.

And sometimes, I am thrown in.

Sometimes…I am pushed.

Sometimes the shit in my past, shit that happened when I was small and helpless and unprotected, looms up large and terrifying and hits me like a 350 pound linebacker, and I go down hard.

I am sitting at the bottom of the pit, in the stench and vileness, and I hurt. I am the lamb bleating in pain and fear, and it is not fair.

IT IS NOT FAIR.

We all suffer from the wounds inflicted upon us that were not our fault; the battles that were fought around us that we did not participate in but which hurt us nonetheless because the shrapnel flew fast and far and buried itself deeply in our flesh. We tried to run, but we didn’t make it far enough, fast enough. And the scars, they are ugly, and they still open and bleed. Usually when we least expect it.

But there is good news.

GOD IS BIGGER.

He knows about not-fair. Purity…hanging on a cross with nails severing muscle and nerve, flesh opened and bleeding from countless whips, He lived and died the not-fair.

And because He did, He is uniquely qualified to lift you up.

He is bigger than the shit that hit you when you were not the one throwing it.

He weeps with you in the not fair of it all. He holds you close. And He will make all things new.

Because to Him, all pits are pits, and regardless of the means by which we were brought low, His ability to lift us up remains unchanged. He stretches out His hand, He opens up the door, and we walk out again. He is the ladder, and He is the way out of all pits, of all kinds, for all time.

Though the path be riddled, and the storms be strong, He holds me by the hand (Psalm 73:23). He makes my path straight (Proverbs 3:6). He speaks calm to the confusion (Mark 4:39) . When I am guided by Him, He will not let my foot slip into destruction (Psalm 94:13).

Though I am tempted to think that the best way, the most logical way, to avoid the pits is to look about myself constantly, keep my eyes on my feet, move slowly and cautiously…quite the opposite is true. The only way to avoid the falling is to keep my eyes riveted to the One who begins and ends every day of my life. The One who hems me in before and behind.

When I keep my eyes fixed on Him, I need not worry about the pits at all, nor the scars, nor the shrapnel. The linebackers skulk away.

And I walk in safety.

Psalm 139:4-6

My soul a crumpled, heavy thing,
it sprawled upon the ground
and wallowed in the muck and mire;
it reveled in the sound
of carnal cries and fleshly lies
upon a feast it gorged
of nothing high it could abide
and substance it abhorred.
I never thought it possible
that such a thing could fly
a lump of clay,
a stodgy clod
was never meant for sky
But by Your hand You lifted me
and with Your voice awoke
a yearning for a brighter blue
beyond a heavy yoke.
My eyes upon the earth were cast
and never sought to win
the brightness of a higher view
until You raised my chin;
Your yoke is but a cross-stick
and my soul is now a kite
uncrumpled
smoothed
all filth removed
and dressed in shades of white.
Upon the Spirit’s steady draft
I’m carried through the gales
and how the view is larger now
that You’ve removed my scales.
My tether is an Anchor
so I cannot come unwound
until the day I sail away
earth-free
and heaven-bound.

Ephesians 2:1-10

The opposite of hot is cold.

The opposite of big is little.

The opposite of up? Down.

Easy.

The opposite of wrath?

Calmness?

How about….holiness.

The opposite of alchoholism?

Sobriety? Holiness.

Laziness?

Action? Holiness.

Gluttony?

Temperance? Holiness.

Lust?

Self-control? Holiness.

Pride?

Humility? Holiness.

Fear?

…………….how about………

Love.

The opposite of something is that which neutralizes it. Holiness eradicates sin in our life, all kinds of sin, without number or exception; the all-consuming holiness of God, as we draw near, burns like a fire those cords of sin that bind and entangle us.

But fear? Ah, fear is such a different animal that holiness alone is not the answer. Holiness can cause us to walk in freedom from sin, but can we walk in freedom from fear through holiness alone?

No.

Christ understands fear so very well…He wept from the dread of what drew near to Him in the Garden of Gethsemane…He does not look down upon us in judgement and loathing when we fear. He understands the trembling, the sweating, the grip of unknown horror that makes it hard to breathe…

He is there, in it. With us. That is His promise. To be with us, always, through every trial, holding our every gasping breath in His hand, and never letting go.  

This is the promise of the Love we have in Him.

The only remedy for fear is to press nearer to Him. We cannot by our own strength of will push the fear away. We cannot wish it away. We cannot hate it away. We cannot deny it away.

We press closer, guileless as children hiding in their mother’s apron, fearful, needing more of Him, who is Love, by name and nature: LOVE.

We fear because we doubt. We fear because we cannot comprehend the kind of love that He waits to pour out upon us…we think it is a pale, puny thing like our own. Variable. Shifting. Dependent. Conditional. But His love is a torrent, a conflagration, an unquenchable, terrifying glory that seeks to consume us.

His Love is, of Itself, fearful to us. It means the death of us. It wants to destroy all that we have built to protect us, to leave us vulnerable and exposed. To shine the full power of Its nuclear power upon our raw and bleeding souls and transform them into something entirely different.

Perhaps because It is so ultimately fearsome, it alone contains the power to engulf our small, fierce fears.

Press in…He is calling…He is reaching…press in just a little more, every day…past the doubt and pain and discouragement and voices…press in, and do not stop. Be engulfed, and in so doing, be perfected.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

We love, because He first loved us.

1 John 4:18-19

Come like a hurricane
come sweep me clean 

Come like a brush fire
make me grow green 

Shake like an earthquake
come shatter these lies 

Be a tsunami
to my stubborn pride

Shatter this vessel
with Your mighty wind 

Then,
be the Healer

and build me again.

Hebrews 12:25-29

Sometimes I get tired.

I get tired of fighting the good fight. I get tired of taking every thought captive. I get tired of putting on the armor of God. I get tired of taking up the Sword of the Spirit. I get tired of reading, and seeking, and knocking, and asking, and waiting.

I just want to be done. Done with all this (picture me making a vague motion with my arms to indicate my present corporeal form). Can I just be done, God? I plead, like a child at summer camp. Can I just come home? I’m lonely. I’m sweaty. I’m tired of living in this tent. It’s falling apart. The other kids don’t always play nicely. Please?

And He answers: nope. Not time yet.

He is not done with me. For whatever reason, He wants me to stay here, at Earthcamp, where the bugs bite and the sun burns and the marshmallows fall into the fire and my enemies kick the shit out of me regularly.

Sometimes, when I feel rebellious, I decide that I just won’t play. Forget the program, I’m going to do my own thing. And my own thing is to sit here on a log and stare into space. Just pretty much quit everything. Because really, what difference does it make? Will anyone even notice? Can’t I just bide my time until the trumpet call that signals camp’s end?

I tell myself that there is something in-between being eaten up with zeal and consumed by zombies. Both options are just so…painful. Surely, if I sit on the sidelines, curl myself into the fetal position, protect my vital organs, then both God and zombie alike will pass by me, unnoticing. The race can be run by the strong–those who are born with better genes, happier pasts, more thorough educations–and the zombies can dine upon the foolish–those who run in circles, making lots of noise.

Me? I’ll just sit here quietly; I won’t make a sound. No one will see me or care. It is a strategy that served me well in childhood when battles raged and shrapnel flew.

The problem is that Earthcamp holds no neutral zone. There is no Switzerland in the realm of spiritual warfare.

Sure, I may experience a respite from attack when I do nothing, but that is only because the enemy of my soul knows full well that I am now doing his job for him. He can focus his efforts elsewhere; I have just made the battle easier. And the spreading numbness that takes over my heart when I sit and stare builds itself into a thick yellow callous of indifference.

Apathy and passivity…these are just other words for the truth: I am rebellious. And not in a good, Jesus-was-a-rebel kind of way. In an I-am-despising-His-offer-of-life-abundant kind of way. I am telling Him that He is not enough for the journey, that His Spirit cannot give me the strength I need, that His tools for victory are lacking. I am telling Him, basically, that He lied to me.

Yet God is not a man, that He should lie.

Fatigue is not a sin. He gives strength for the day, and for the battle. He gives weapons for the warfare. But it is up to me to choose to pick them up and use them. It is up to me to choose to wait upon Him, and have my strength renewed. But the renewal will not come if I am sulking and pouting.

His truth–His word–will not fill up my heart and mind when they are already full to overflowing with complaint and fretfulness.

Only in rebuking the lies and having confidence in His wisdom will I find the renewal I need. When I determine, once and for all, that God is always good, and I am always loved, I rise up with wings like an eagle, and soar.

Isaiah 30:15

Isaiah 40:31

Human nature is a funny thing. If we hire a maid, we clean up before she comes. If we join a gym, we try to get in shape before we actually go.

And we decide that we will come to God tomorrow…or the next day…just as soon as we get this or that straightened out.

We want to come to God on our terms, when things are on an even keel and our *stuff* is neatly categorized and labelled and stuffed into boxes or shoved under the rug, out of sight. Like gracious hostesses, we then step to the door, adjust our string of pearls, and invite God in to tea.

And this is okay with God; if this is all we give Him, He will take it. He will drink the tea with one pinkie finger aloft, listen to your vapid conversation, and stay as long as you allow Him.

But He can’t do much with you.

And He longs to do so much.

Why the self-protection, I wonder? What could be worse than living with all that ignominious crap piled in corners and bulging out of closets, demonically snickering from the darkness under our spiritual beds, where we lie uneasily, waiting for it to pounce as soon as we let our guard down?

Living without it, I suppose.

Just what would we do without the weight of all of it, the crushing burden of carrying it, the busy-ness with which we pile it here and there, and then unpack it and pile it somewhere else in an effort to feel like we are making progress? Oh, I put that into the “lies I have believed” bin? Silly me! It’s really much more sensible to place it here, in “lack of faith”! Hallelujah! Progress!”

Just how light would we be, how far could we fly, how large could we live, if we loosened our grip on the shit that we think defines us? Why, we might fly completely into pieces, forget who we were, become someone altogether transformed!

It’s a terrifyingly glorious thought.

God doesn’t want to come into the one room of our soul where we’ve swept and dusted and tidied and polished. While we sit, blithering on to Him about how we‘d like to go down this path now, and would He please bless our endeavor in this or that, He’s eyeing with longing the doors that we’ve tightly shut–the ones that rattle and hum with devilish activity–and the drawers that sag with memories unhealed and unredeemed.

He waits for us to invite Him to make sense and order of our chaos. To obliterate and incinerate and repudiate.

What are we waiting for? Is it just too messy, too painful?

He knows all about messy and painful. His life on earth was heaped high with both. Born into straw and manure, through blood and flesh, He entered the world and cried at the shock of air on skin that never knew cold. He put on the man-suit and covered his feet daily with the dust it was made from. He touched leprous sores that oozed with disease, made mud from his own spit to patch blind eyes, and placed his fingers on mute tongues, commanding them to speak. He sweated, wept, ate and drank. One could assume that He also eliminated, but to suggest such a thing is heading into dangerous waters, so I will refrain.

Lastly, He died. He hung on a cross naked (it would be indecent to show Christ hanging on the cross completely naked, but that is what scripture tells us happened. We must clothe him just a wee bit as He hangs up there, just drape that same cloth across his nether-regions that He wore in the Christmas-manger-scenes so that both are equally ridiculous) and the Son of God endured more humiliation and pain on that day than we can properly conceive of.

And we have the unmitigated gall to suggest that our mess is just too gross for Him?

The truth is that even if we believe our past contains crap God needs to deal with, we’d like just a little while longer to stroke it, fondle it, and sigh over it. Because there’s stuff in there that we don’t hate enough. There’s stuff mixed in there with the embarrassment and shame and sorrow…stuff that we think we need.  Stuff that we think defines us. And if we let Him in, then He will surely sweep it all away in one cataclysmic blast and all that would be left is…….boring.

Yes. Because if we let Him come and rearrange our souls and purify our minds and give us His divine nature, we will be so very boring.

Because Jesus was so boring, wasn’t He? Oh my, what a boring fellow He was. We wouldn’t want to be like Him.

And that, right there, is just how ridiculous we are.

I thought I’d sit and write a list
to frame my disposition
a tally of my attributes
for others to envision.

I struggled much to keep it short
as you will plainly see;
I’m sure you’ll be as proud as I
of my humility.

As patient as a saint, I am,
unless things goes awry;
And honest as the day is long
until I’m forced to lie.

I’m firm with all my discipline
except when lenient,
I’ll gladly help you in a jam
as long as it’s convenient.

My faithfulness to faithlessness
will never find its equal!
The book that holds my final say
now needs to have a sequel.

I’m abidingly committed
to steadfast indecision,
and great is my unswerving trust
in sweeping skepticism.

When it comes to being grateful
I’ve got loads of thankfulness
and the only times I grumble
are on days containing “s”.

You’d find me quite impressive
in my triviality!
For there’s nothing more consistent
than my inconsistency.

You see, in matters ethical,
I’d really like to say
that black and white don’t suit me well;
I’m quite content with gray.

Romans 7:21-25

“Blessed are You, Hashem, our G-d, King of the universe, Who formed man with wisdom and created within him many openings and many hollows (cavities). It is obvious and known before Your Throne of Glory that if but one of them were to be ruptured or if one of them were to be blocked it would be impossible to survive and to stand before You (even for a short period of time). Blessed are You, Hashem, Who heals all flesh and acts wonderously.”

Come to find out (thanks, Sarah!) that the Asher Yatzar is a Jewish blessing, found in the Talmud, that was written approximately 1600 year ago by a 4th century rabbi named Abayei.*

I thank God for a body that works properly; one which He has provided with ways to eliminate death and decay.

And how much more do I thank Him for the way He provided, through Jesus Christ, to eliminate the death and decay that seeks to claim my soul!

Romans 6:16-17

*article on the blessing here

Truly, our bodies are miraculous things. That’s just the truth. They have been phenomenally designed to carry on more processes in a single breath than we can count in that same inhalation.

Cell respiration, red blood cells whisking oxygen to fingertips and pinkie toes, neural pathways ablaze with messages to STOP, GO, BLINK, REACT…our heart beats without our express permission, our lungs discard CO2 without us signing any forms, our hand jerks away from a hot pan on the stove before we even know how to form the word “ouch”.

And let’s not forget poop.

Because really, what is better than pooping? I challenge you to describe to me a more blissful event than that of finally locating a toilet when the need has crossed the line between “urgent” and “one millisecond away from utter humiliation”. Ah, the relief.

At its most elementary explanation, pooping is the expulsion of waste. Stuff we don’t need. Our bodies, when operating at their miraculous optimum, extract all we need from the food we ingest. Stomach, duodenum, small intestine, large. All fulfill their purpose in taking that food and squeezing every bit of life from them, and the rest, a mass of mostly water, fiber, and bacteria, is eliminated. We don’t think about it, we just do it. We don’t give the order, our bodies decide when it shall take place, whether we are standing in line at Wal Mart, sitting in front of the fire at home, or at a huge company picnic eating questionable potato salad and looking uneasily at the porta-potties.

My point is, we take it for granted.

Until something goes wrong.

And then, well…what would be wrong with NOT pooping? I’m sure many people would be happy to do without the inconvenience entirely. But hold onto your poop and all kinds of nasty things can happen. Things with names like ”Intestinal obstruction”, “Anal Fissure”, and “Colon Cancer”…all of which can lead to death. Death! From not pooping!

Do I have a point? I’m sure you are asking. If you got this far, you are begging me to wrap this up, and there may be a hidden pun in there, I don’t know.

Yes, yes I do have a point.

If you hold onto your poop, clench hard enough, feed your one, unique, God-gifted body things like cheese puffs and twinkies, you’re choosing death by slow poisoning. SLOW. POISON. Hold onto that poop, and it festers in your gut. All the toxins that your body was helpfully trying to get rid of swiftly and effectively begin to leach back into your system and flow into all your organs. Bacteria flourishes, with no place to go but back into your body. Diverticula form, catching and holding more nastiness.

I’m having a hard time not getting on a dietary soapbox here, but BY GOLLY THAT WAS NOT MY INTENTION. I was trying to make a metaphor.

If you still haven’t grasped it, I’m saying, ya gotta POOP REGULARLY to be HEALTHY. Bodily, I mean.

And (drum roll please) ya gotta SHIT REGULARLY to be HEALTHY. Spiritually, I mean.

If you don’t let go of the shit…the pride, the fear, the unforgiveness, the misplaced anger, the vice, the fill-in-the-blank…if you clench and dance and deny that it’s there, your soul festers. Filth collects in the little pockets of error. Decay sets in. You are being slowly poisoned by your own stubbornness. That’s what I’m saying. Sometimes it gets so bad that by the time we come to Him, He has to administer a holy laxative through our clenched lips, and that is really not fun. Don’t ask me how I know.

What I am also saying that it’s not a once in a lifetime experience. God is not going to deliver you from all the sin that so easily entangles once and then release you to be a shining, glorious vision of perfection for all the world to admire. Sorry to break it to you (me). Daily, you will sit down before Him and He will strip you of all your shit, if you will let Him. You’ll feel clean, invigorated, lighter, pure…but please don’t despair when you wake up the next day and are a festering cesspit once again.

He’s in the cesspit, He’s got the shovel. He’s ready to go to work. He has the original “dirty job” and He’s not going to shrink back, no matter how many times you come. He’s the God of the mud, the God of the blood, the God of the manger and the God of the leper. He can handle you.

 But the pride that says I will take care of it keeps us away. Oh, how it keeps me away. I am the toddler demanding i do it myself!!!! while making the biggest mess possible. As soon as I get cleaned up, I think I have room to talk. Room to preach. Room to blog.

I don’t, really. I’ve been in a fairly dark place just in the past few days, if you must know. My victories are fleeting and my descents spectacular. I pick up the shovel and lose all sight of the Author and Finisher of my faith. What’s worse, I try to pick up other people’s shovels.

But that’s a whole ‘nuther blog post.

Isaiah 26:3

So how do you rise up, anyway?

“Just do it” is a great slogan for selling tennis shoes, but it leaves me groping a little; I need something more…descriptive…more practical…

I have wasted a lot of years–so many years–trying to conjure up the willpower to follow hard after Christ, to just do it. Sometimes, when things were stable and happy, it would work, for a while. In my own strength, I might have a good week, or two, but then illness would strike, or crisis, or just the downward plunge of the hormonal roller coaster, and I’d be laid out.

I waited for the day when I would simply wake up with the endurance to run this race. With enough love to pour out to everyone in my life. With faith that moved mountains. I wondered at my apathy, my lack of fruit.

I prayed that I would be better about praying. Better about running with joy. Better about loving others. Better about trusting Him. But honestly, I didn’t feel like I ever changed much. Not significantly. Not so you’d notice. Life was kind of a drudge, and pasting on a smile and singing “this is the day that the Lord has made” didn’t really help.

Something in my heart was hopelessly askew. Something in my prayers was utterly lacking.

Entering into His throne room, muttering my doubts and fears, passing under that torn veil without even a thought to the torn flesh that made it possible, confessing to Him how I didn’t really think He would do it, but here I was, because I knew I was instructed to pray, and Lord knows I like to be obedient, but anyway God, here I am…and here I go again, out into my life, still carrying…no, curling around it protectively lest He deal with it…my endless shit…

Oh the mercy and endless patience our Great God has with us!!

I wanted lots of things, asked Him for lots of things, but never thought to ask Him for HIM. Never asked for Him, never wanted HIM to become more and me to become less, not really. So painful, that laying down of will, that burning up of self that makes room for more of Him. No, didn’t really want it, not so much. Just stay at arm’s length, God, if you please. I will mutter my self-centered prayers that only ask for what I want instead of what You want, and be safe.

(But safe by that definition means the zombie wins, the zombie drags and gnaws and whispers and it is not really safe at all, but at least there is that spreading numbness.)

Often had I prayed, but rarely had I bowed the neck, or the knee. My prayers were full of pride, asking Him to make me able. Make me patient, Lord. Make me strong. Make me brave. Make me loving. Make me joyful.

Make me look good.

 Make me look good so I can just do it!

The day my heart started changing was the day I stretched out before Him, sick of the reek of decay that lay just beneath the barely-maintained appearance of goodness, and told HIM to JUST DO IT. Burn it up, Lord. Burn up my SELF. Only when the “me” is burned is there room in the ashes for Him to be resurrected. He is the true phoenix, taking the dead spots and breathing His Spirit upon them, transforming our weaknesses into places where His strength shines most strongly. We just have to ask.

WE JUST HAVE TO ASK.

Are you sick enough of the zombie yet? Are you weary to the depths of your being of excusing your shit, reconciling yourself to the gnawing, telling yourself that’s just the way it has to be? If you are, then rising up really means falling down. Fall down before His grace, and let Him do the surgery that needs doing. It’s really that simple.

Lord God…JUST DO IT.

Hebrews 12:1&2