Hands Possessed by Violence

It's everywhere. It's suffocating.

I was just talking to a dear friend of mine. The conversation began with small talk, proceeded to future plans in life, and then moved into the deeper parts of life. The deeper parts of spiritual life. I am not "in the know" as far as movies and up-coming movies are concerned, and he was filling me in on the list of flicks about to emerge. Things like movies on Spider Man, Thor, Superman, Batman, and Mortal Combat. As we spoke, I was struck hard by just how much violence is on the TV screen. How much violence is rooted into our culture. How much violence we tolerate and celebrate. Daily.

This year I had an interesting experience with a movie based on the popular book "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" which left me reeling and broken inside. I used to be a violence addict in high school, my favourite movie was "300" and if an action movie wasn't rated at least R, then I wasn't interested. . . . But I can't stand it anymore. My nerves can't take it, my mind can't take it, I get sickened by the children of God bashing each other around on screen. Yes, it's all fake and dramatized. But it's based on life. Real life. A life where killing and murdering are both done in the name of freedom, justice, peace, and even love. . . . LOVE. "Killing in the name of love." Now that is one messed up sentence.

When a murderer gets murdered, it's seen as good. When anything that infringes our rights as a human being or a citizen, we want to see it dead. Yes, freedom, justice, peace, and love are all things to be sought after and are dear to God's heart! But if stopping the violence is done through more violence... is that right? No, it's not. it's not even close to being right.

We're possessed. We're possessed by a spirit of violence. It flows through everything we do. The way that society views relationships, friendships, social structures, work, sex, and justice is completely rooted in violence. We live out our lives on a battle field where only the brutal survive. Evil necessitates evil. Yuck. That sickens me. There's no such thing a lesser of two evils. EVER. Yet we sit here convincing ourselves that evil men deserve evil ends. Who are we to decide what anyone deserves??? Who are we to say that they don't deserve God's grace, just as much as I do?? Who are we to say that there's no chance for them and their road needs to end????

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of hurt people who hurt people. I'm tired of hands that are possessed by violence.

I want hands that heal... at least I can hold onto a hand that heals...

I want to live in the culture of Heaven. On earth, as it is in Heaven.

Nothing.

I want God. I want Him every way I can find Him. I don't believe that all roads lead to God... But I desire, more than anything, to go find God on every single road.

I'm in Canada right now, but I don't want to be here. I want, more than anything, to jump on a plain right now - heading to Calcutta. I wish I was already there. I wish Mother Teresa was still alive and that I could go learn from her and work beside her. I wish that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was still alive so that I could go and learn from him about giving everything for Christ. I wish that I could go anywhere, so long as it was not here, and learn what it is to be nothing. But I'm still here... trying to learn what it is to be nothing.

I want God. I want Him every way I can find him. I want to spend my life living in the culture of Heaven. On earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus tells me to care for the widows and orphans. I want to go and do that. I want to be selfless. I want to be fearless. I want to be loving... But I'm not.

I want to have nothing and give everything.

But I don't.

There's a lot of things I don't do. There's a lot of things I want to do.

I want so badly to go travel every road. and find God there.

I want God. I want Him every way I can find Him.

Hmm... Words

Today at church, I was given a word... I was given a prophetic word. I've been given these before. This isn't the first time that I've been handed a message from the Lord, and I'm ALWAYS blessed by them. They are usually inspiring, insightful, encouraging, and meaningful. . . I usually leave ready to conquer my new battle and take on the world.

This time I was scared. Really scared... God's been giving me lots of words, texts, conversations, all of them pointing to one thing... all of them pointing to something I need to do. And I don't want to do it. I'm scared. Really scared. Well, that's not completely true... I do want to do it. I do want to grab hold of this word and run with it... But I'm scared. The fear of failure overwhelms me, and I know it shouldn't. Honestly, I don't usually struggle with this. Failure is never on my list of greatest fears... or at least it rarely is.

But here I find myself... afraid to fail. My Bible is packed with texts reiterating to me the fact that I don't serve a God of failure, and that my God is ready to back me up and pour through everything I do in His name. Not only are they in my Bible, but those texts are highlighted, underlined, and commented on... So how am I in this position? Why am I in this position? And why can't I get out? . . . I want out.

The word I got in church was a good word. It was a holy word. It was from a holy man of God... I want to embrace, to cherish it, to be inspired by it, and run with it.

Pray for me.