Samson...ite

In case yall Didn't hear like Samson i had my locks cut and henceforth all power drained from my being....

Sans Locks:



Before:

What's your birth Certificate Say?

There are many things that i unbeknowingly accepted as a part of my identity strictly from my parents. My large snoz, dark hair, affinity for the Spanish and the like. However one of the hardest things to realize is that when i became an adopted Child of God i got a new birth certificate. Just like in real life when a child is adopted they recieve a new "identity" of sorts in the family they are now a part of. Unlike the natural picking up though of the habits, joys, loves of that family we as believers must fight with everything we have just to hold onto the true identity of myself.

Can i look back at God's certificate on my life and accept myself as beloved....always? That's who i am and who you are. Straight up. I am not the sum total of my good + bad behavior. I am not who i say/think i am. I am not made up completely of what others think/percieve me to be. I am one thing...beloved

Giving up on Painless Life/All Dead White Boys say God is Good

Bonhoeffer, one of the most famous theologians of our time, has been immortalized for his phrase concerning costly grace..."when Christ calls a man he bids him come and die". I don't know why but the first time i read that and even when i approach the gospels i have a very almost romantic notion of flesh-dying-and-spiritual-seed-planting in that hole. From root canals to lodged bullets things that poison us must be pulled out no matter the cost. Why should i think that any sin hanging out in my body should be any different? If anything the nature of sin should contort and disfigure my soul if i let it impregnate me. Funny that you don't hear many folks (pastor-folk) talking like that.

For as many writhing moments i have had broken in my weakness to defeat the flesh in me i am still content in the greatness of the depth my Saviour went to give me an oppurtunity to fight. This kind of fighting-until-death will be the most painful thing we will ever endure. C.S Lewis, in his Great Divorce uses the illusion of an iguana sitting on your shoulder for indwelling sin and as you try to pull it off it only digs its claws in deeper. Folks in the book give into the pain and accept it as normal so eventually the pain turns them numb.

Pain of sin still tells me i am not numb to it which is a good thing. Numbness scares me. God seems to care least for numb apathetic individuals who won't even feel His heartbeat let alone their own. Physical death seems to be a release from all this but only comes after I have fought, scratched, and lost teeth in the effort to rid my life of this poisonous disease by loving more of Christ.