I've just completed reading the fourth chapter of Brennan Manning's book Ragamuffin Gospel. The fourth chapter, Cormorants & Kittiwakes, found me crying simple tears from page 102-105. I think this was the culmination of the three previous chapters crescendoing into the fourth. Though I have a great desire to finish the book, I have to stop and digest what I have read. Like eating a muti-course meal, I must stop and allow the fullness to dissipate.
As I've said before, at 30 years of age, I set out on a quest to determine what it is that I believe. Not what have I been taught by my parents, grand parents, teachers, professors, denominational dogma, but what is the real truth without these filters.
Reading Manning before going to bed last night left me remembering a childhood of fear. Fearing a great God who was coming like a thief in the night to rapture only the purest of the pure away. Leaving the rest of us to suffer the intolerable pain and scourge of the "end times".
I thought of the agony of laying in bed in the same room with my brother. Recalling the scripture that says two will be in bed, one will be taken the other left. Knowing that I would be the one left because I was the older more sinful of the two. How grateful I was when I got my own room!
If that sounds silly to you, it only gets worse. In my child mind, I thought that the animals would be taken in the rapture. I could not imagine God leaving them to suffer with the humans. Many times through the day I would run to the cages of our birds, or call for our dogs, to make sure they were still there and the rapture had not occurred yet. Imagine the horror I felt when finally someone told me..."the animals aren't going in the rapture, just the humans." I had no way of knowing if I had been left or not?!?
I am able to laugh heartily now about my childhood OCD. But was I alone, or were there others in my generation who suffered the same fate? How have they been affected by learning of the god of wrath rather than the God of grace. Are there yet others today being taught this horrible gospel? The unfortunate answer is yes.
The last eleven years have served to displace and dislodge the god of wrath from my mind, and install the God of Grace into my heart. The incredible freedom that has come from understanding God as loving and gracious has been amazing. Realizing it is not what goes in that defiles, but what comes out. Christ came for me and all the other theives, liars, whores, and "dirty shabbily clothed urchins".
As I read Chapter 4 this morning, I was sitting on my back porch with a cup of coffee in the 40 degree air, living in and loving the "now". Loving the cold, loving the creation and creator. The culmination of time, place, words, thoughts, & feelings made the moment extremely real.
I love the conversation between William Wilberforce, a disciple of John Newton, and his house man in the movie Amazing Grace.
Wilberforce caught outside his home sitting in the grass tells his house man, "I have 10,000 engagements of state today but I would prefer to spend the day out here getting a wet ass studying dandelions and marveling at bloody spider webs.
His assistant replies, "You've found God sir."
Wilborforce answers, "I think he found me...do you have any idea how inconvenient that is? How idiotic it will sound? I have a political career glittering ahead of me and in my heart I want spiders webs."
The assistant sits on the grass beside him and says, "It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself...Frances Bacon..." Then in reply to Wilberforce's wondering look... "I don't just dust your books sir."
That's how I feel, I have 10,000 things to do today, but I just really want to sit in my backyard and read more of the grace and goodness of God for terribly sinful people like me. So that I can share that grace with my fellow dirty, ragged dressed children.
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Well said. I was amused at your rapture fear since I did the same thing when I was young. I would run around doing a body count as well as an animal count. When I was younger, there was a movie series out that my church would show every so often. "Thief in the night". Of course if you watched it now you would think "what cheesy acting". But back then it was created to scare the pudding out of us. Movies such as that didn't help me to understand a God of mercy and grace. Oops, now I am starting to blog about your blog when all I meant to say is, I agree with what you said and "coffee with God on a 40 degree morning" could become a title to your next book.
That book should be required reading for all Christians. It's truly a breath of fresh air. In fact, I was just thinking this week about how I needed to go back and read it again.
My rapture story -- right after we were married, Brenda and I lived in Marshall, where the tornado sirens went off frequently. She had never heard them before, but since I heard them every few days, I'd learned to ignore them.
Then one night, about three in the morning, I become semi-aware they sirens were blaring again, but didn't stir. A second later, Brenda is shaking me out of my deep slumber, thinking the trumpets were sounding and that I couldn't hear them and was about to be left behind!
My Dear Son,
You have reached the headwaters of grace, and have drunk deeply of the fountainhead of mercy!
It feels that you and I have somewhat made this journey of the metamorphosis from fear into the grace of God together! We have talked over coffee, visited on the phone, exchanged emails over the past few years as we have searched and desired to move from fear and legalism into the heart of an un-understandable God. We knew it was there, it was just being able to let go the thundering of fears from the past and allow our souls and spirits to flow with an eternal heartbeat!
My journey began in Bible College, sitting in the classroom of Dr. Thomas Harrison. He was way ahead of his time in understanding the love of God! I can remember his shrill (he always rose to a high tenor when he was excited) voice, "Brethren, never preach on hell like you are glad people are going there...if you can't preach it with a tear in your eye and sob in your throat, leave it alone." Yet, it took many years and many experiences for all he said in those days to culminate in spiritual understanding for me.
I have profusely repented to God of my preachments of judgments and judgmentalism, as well as knowing that they were affecting my own children. I just pray today that you, Michael, and Robin understand my love for all of you; and that my errors were out of zeal and my own fears of the darkness and shadows of the past.
When I was just a mere tot, I can remember being told that if I didn't behave in certain ways that, "Tanny-bogus," was going to get me. Now I didn't know who the heck Tanny-bogus was, but I was sure he breathed fire, had horns and a pitchfork, and was going to turn me into a crispy critter in a second of time! (Someday I may write a book on grace entitled, "Tanny-bogus Can't Get Me.")
Like you, I had my "rapture fear," experiences. When I was about 7 or 8, I went with your Mammaw to the old Brookshire Bro. store in Lufkin. It has long since given way to the ultra-modern supermarket, and Dixon's Furniture now inhabits the old building. Anyway, as she shopped I got separated from her. I ran up and down the aisles screaming for her, as I was sure the rapture had come and I was left behind. After all I had said an "ugly" word the day before while playing with my friends Wayne and Paul, and had forgotten to ask forgiveness. Isn't it amazing how after all those years that moment is still so vivid in my old aging brain??!
Today we still move on in the light that we have discovered, and we still, "...see through a glass darkly..." we remain open to that which only comes by revelation from the received written Word that is given to guide us into the fullness of His Grace! We understand more fully indeed that, "God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son..."
So Kel, walk on in light, continue to drink deeply, and enjoy the coffee and the spider! There are no spiders on this cold morning in East Texas, but as I sit on the patio and sip I just enjoy the birds, squirrels, and the cool misty breeze in my face!
Love You Much, Dad
P.S. By the way, animals do go to heaven! After all didn't we learn much of, "unconditional love," from Sadie, Cairo, and the other pets who have loved us through the years??!!!
My Dear Son,
You have reached the headwaters of grace, and have drunk deeply of the fountainhead of mercy!
It feels that you and I have somewhat made this journey of the metamorphosis from fear into the grace of God together! We have talked over coffee, visited on the phone, exchanged emails over the past few years as we have searched and desired to move from fear and legalism into the heart of an un-understandable God. We knew it was there, it was just being able to let go the thundering of fears from the past and allow our souls and spirits to flow with an eternal heartbeat!
My journey began in Bible College, sitting in the classroom of Dr. Thomas Harrison. He was way ahead of his time in understanding the love of God! I can remember his shrill (he always rose to a high tenor when he was excited) voice, "Brethren, never preach on hell like you are glad people are going there...if you can't preach it with a tear in your eye and sob in your throat, leave it alone." Yet, it took many years and many experiences for all he said in those days to culminate in spiritual understanding for me.
I have profusely repented to God of my preachments of judgments and judgmentalism, as well as knowing that they were affecting my own children. I just pray today that you, Michael, and Robin understand my love for all of you; and that my errors were out of zeal and my own fears of the darkness and shadows of the past.
When I was just a mere tot, I can remember being told that if I didn't behave in certain ways that, "Tanny-bogus," was going to get me. Now I didn't know who the heck Tanny-bogus was, but I was sure he breathed fire, had horns and a pitchfork, and was going to turn me into a crispy critter in a second of time! (Someday I may write a book on grace entitled, "Tanny-bogus Can't Get Me.")
Like you, I had my "rapture fear," experiences. When I was about 7 or 8, I went with your Mammaw to the old Brookshire Bro. store in Lufkin. It has long since given way to the ultra-modern supermarket, and Dixon's Furniture now inhabits the old building. Anyway, as she shopped I got separated from her. I ran up and down the aisles screaming for her, as I was sure the rapture had come and I was left behind. After all I had said an "ugly" word the day before while playing with my friends Wayne and Paul, and had forgotten to ask forgiveness. Isn't it amazing how after all those years that moment is still so vivid in my old aging brain??!
Today we still move on in the light that we have discovered, and we still, "...see through a glass darkly..." we remain open to that which only comes by revelation from the received written Word that is given to guide us into the fullness of His Grace! We understand more fully indeed that, "God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son..."
So Kel, walk on in light, continue to drink deeply, and enjoy the coffee and the spider! There are no spiders on this cold morning in East Texas, but as I sit on the patio and sip I just enjoy the birds, squirrels, and the cool misty breeze in my face!
Love You Much, Dad
P.S. By the way, animals do go to heaven! After all didn't we learn much of, "unconditional love," from Sadie, Cairo, and the other pets who have loved us through the years??!!!
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