freedom

Day 36: Stop tattooing your bodies Christians

January 21, 2019 — Leave a comment

Leviticus 19-20; Psalm 36

The Bible says to not tattoo our body. How many Christians ignore that and tat it up? Oh but the part about a male lying with another male as an abomination, we go up in arms against the LBGTQ community. Hm. I also don’t want to fall into the track of picking and choosing what to believe? What do I do with this? How can I read all of and hear the heart of the message? Context.

So God is speaking specifically to the Israelites in the wilderness. They’re a traveling nation of way too many people and need some guidance to get to the promise land. God’s laws are to remind them that they are to be a nation set apart to show the compassion and rescue of God. How does tattooing their body affect that? What is it really trying to protect the people of? How does the talk around various sexual relations help these people get to the promise land? I honestly don’t know. But if we had thrown out the tattoo part, can we not throw out the man lying with man part? Is it really talking about gay sex?

If Jesus came to be make us holy and to set us apart, can we throw away all these very specific commandments from the OT? But I also don’t want to believe that I serve a God who had these prejudices and biases. FML.

All I know is I am to love people like they are already enough and created in the image of God because God has deemed me enough and I believe that by the blood of Jesus. My love cannot be discriminatory and hateful. That doesn’t fit. My love needs to be wide and deep and embraces especially those society have pushed aside. God help.

Day 32: Boom! You’re on fire.

January 17, 2019 — Leave a comment

Leviticus 8-10; Psalm 32

Aaron and his sons are given an incredible privilege to in God’s presence and showcase his perfection before the people. Honor am I right! Then two of Aaron’s sons, maybe accidentally, maybe just didn’t think too much about it, went before the holy place and were consumed by God’s holiness and died. Aaron is too stricken by grief that he doesn’t say anything and his two other sons have to claim the bodies. Now at this point, if I were an Israelite I would not be jealous of Aaron’s job. Approaching God and being a reflection of God is damn dangerous. It could cost you your life if you don’t do things right. It’s no haphazard, half thought out thing for Aaron and his family to have access to God. It’s no joke that they are chosen to mirror God’s holiness.

One thank you Jesus that our missteps don’t result us in our immediate smiting. But do we sometimes take for granted our access to God? What does it even mean to do that? What does it mean to haphazardly come before God and more importantly try to represent him? Do we get cocky that we have God and start to do what we want thinking whatever God already chose me? How do you balance a freedom to approach God however and a gravitas to the encounter? We have full access to God; I mean God’s in us. Let us not take that lightly and misrepresent how beautiful that is that we have the divine. May we really reflect what it means to be divine, to be chosen as divine. Because that can either draw people towards God or push them away in fear and anger. Poor Aaron. What a lesson to kill his two sons… this Bible can be OUT THERE.

Day 29: Brought out to be set apart

January 14, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 35-40; Psalm 29

The people are to give according to how their heart is stirred. How do we measure that stirring? How do we straddle sacrifice and generosity? How much do we give to exhibit our commitment?

God’s laws set us apart. We are to be known by God’s law. God’s law should make us attractive in order to fulfill the covenant of multiplying our numbers. God’s law isn’t only to shape us in the present, but to remind us of what’s to come. I like this concept of his law. It’s the training, the discipline, the way to move that transform us. When you follow something long enough, it becomes second nature. I don’t have to walk around a store and constantly remind myself not to steal. If you are living and breathing love and compassion, you shouldn’t need to pray about giving our compassion and love. It should be second-nature. Your heart should naturally stir for you to give.

Goodbye Exodus. It’s been real and bits boring. It’s been upsetting and scary watching God be that angry and sad. It’s been patient to journey with the Israelites in the wilderness. Exodus,you are tiredsome and specific, but it all points to a long suffering grace that is God.

Day 24: Wild wild country

January 9, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 22-24; Psalm 24

The Israelites were in Egypt under oppression with rules created by the Pharaoh. Here they are in the wilderness and God sends them commandments and a way of living. Being in the wilderness without boundaries and direction would not have been freedom. God needed to be so specific on relational and moral issues as if the Israelites didn’t know these things. His specificities with animals and money and people reveal an intimate God who knows what our daily dealings are like. God cares about those day to day things because those all connect to the 10 commandments which in turn connect to loving God and trusting God.

But I can’t imagine life in the wilderness like this. Was this better than being in Egypt? Free but not sure what the next day would look like? Is freedom and faith better than living in a society where I know what each moment will look like? If yes, then why do we often live in the latter? We choose pain over the potential of fulfillment/disappointment. We choose settling over the potential of loss/gain. We choose knowing over possibility. Is it the control? Is it fear? I’m trying to figure this out so I choose the scary hope over the unhappy secure!

Day 23: Rules, Rules, Rules

January 8, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 19-21; Psalm 23

Here comes the rules. Rules are a imperfect manifestation of wisdom and social justice and goodness. It’s a way of making sense of a less tangible sense of holiness and right way of living. It’s an asymptote to living for God. If we follow all the rules but without consent and knowing the heart behind them, it’s not love. It feels like prison and a system of trying not to cross the line. I’m not saying rules are bad. If you look at the rules and commandments and understand this helps us prioritize God before self, this helps us trust our provision, this teaches relational goodness, and you agree with the foundation of these said commandments, then you’re not following out of obligation but rather living according to a good way. So don’t fall pray to a need to follow 10 commandments and 52 other ones to be a “person of God.” What do the commandments say about God, you and people? How does each commandment help us live in just relationship with God, others and ourselves? Because when Jesus comes he revamps these rules, not by abolishing them but actually by revealing the impossible-like heart of God’s way. Do not lust? Damn that covers a lot of ground and makes us really think through our ideas of intimacy, relationship and love. Forgive fully? Damn that makes us rethink reparations, revenge, Grace, mercy and endurance. Those ideas are big and broad and require wisdom and freedom and a continual conversation with God. I can follow rules; now living a life where each moment is surrendered to God’s wisdom and freedom? That requires faith.

Day 21: How to read without discarding God

January 6, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 13-15; Psalm 21

I don’t like this God of war. I’m not sure how to receive all that he does here. Unless, one I discard this story, which Bible people say you can’t. You can’t just pick and choose stories in the Bible because in essence you are creating the God that fits YOU. And how much can we really trust ourselves? There should be a level of discomfort when we make ourselves better, more in line with wholeness, goodness, compassion, kindness, all the above that God is from the beginning. So this God of war and God who hardens the Egyptians are really messing with me. I either have to take this story or throw away the God. Can I interpret this story in light of God’s character? A God of war that fits into a God of compassion… Can this tale be a metaphor? Does it remind us how prisons and past lifestyles grip us and don’t want to let us go? Does it tell us to keep signs of how God has freed us? What have we been freed from? What’s a sign of that, that we can bring up time and time again so we don’t lose sight of that redemptive God? Does it also show us how quickly we forget all that God has done for us? How quickly we see the power of God and go back to complaining about the little things and doubting?

Seeing this more as a metaphor of God’s power and love instead of taking it so literally help me make sense of it. It still doesn’t sit 100% well with me. Is that because the wars and revenge of my current world really suck? I’m part of the oppressive nation. In my current world, we are the Egyptians.

Day 19: Freedom & Slavery

January 4, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 7-9; Psalm 19

The Pharaoh put his people’s life in danger because of his damn ego. Was it that important to him to keep an enslaved people that hated him? He didn’t believe the signs of Moses and Aaron because he saw the same signs done by his people. So even when his own team of slytherin couldn’t reproduce the same plagues, he remained stubborn?

In what areas of our heart have we chosen our own ego and proud over the goodness of things and people in our responsibility? In what areas do we question the God of the gospels by pointing to results from other sources? How have we lessened the power of God by crowding our space with lesser powers that do in fact bring about miracles? How can we tell which is of God and which is not?

PS Aaron and Moses are in the 80s. It’s never too late to do the thing your life was made for.

I desire for the power of the Scriptures that Psalm 19 exclaims. I want to see the the Grace, compassion, righteousness (not self-righteousness) exude from me as I choose God over the ways of this world that are only for my happiness. Help me to decipher areas in my heart that are selfish and may the Word of God continue to lead, guide, and shape me into a defiant and radical woman of freedom.

The contrast of slavery in Egypt and the freedom from the Scripture. Where am I trapped and don’t know it? Where am I freer than I allow myself? Where am I hardened and need to be softened? Where am I not owning the choices and paths that are good?

Day 15: Freely roam in rootedness

December 31, 2018 — Leave a comment

Genesis 46-47; Psalm 15

It’s hard to read Joseph’s current wealth and loyalty to the Pharaoh and not think about the Israelites future slavery. Joseph sets up the structures for the Egyptians to hate the Israelites and for the Pharaoh to have utmost power. But he didn’t know. He was both a person in God’s redemption to presently save his people and to set up a future that enslaves them. What structures am I laying down now that will bite me in the ass later? Where do I think I’m so clever and impervious to failure? I don’t think Joesph knew he was doing wrong, but I wonder if he thought very long term.

To sojourn in God’s tent is to be rooted so nothing of this world can pull you away from his love. To be free in God’s world is to have the range to act like you are already enough. Freedom, grounded-ness, movement and stability are two sides of the same coin.