Pray.
Pray for the movement in general:
Pray that darkness will be vanquished, that hearts will be healed no matter where or who, that this time the restoration will be completed, that this time our Lord and our God will find a people who can stand in His presence and survive.
Do you not think it is painful for Jesus, our Beloved Lord, to see - over and over and over and over again ad nauseum - what we do with what He gives us? Do you not think it saddens Him?
From the beginning of time, we humans have thrown His gifts into His face, often while chanting His name and claiming His approval of our jarrings, as if HE was the one who commanded us to take offense, to persecute, to kill, to harm, to harass, to backbite, et al. We use our Lord's name in vain when we claim His approval for such things, or consider ourselves justified before heaven for our hurt feelings, for our tendency to persecute, to jar, to envy.
Can we not see that we are less than the dust of the earth? We are disobedient to a fault. Really, truly. In that thing we are perfect. We have perfected our sins: anger, jarrings, contention, fault-finding, mocking, persecuting, taking offense when none was intended. We have perfected listening to the dark spirits and to our own vanity. We have perfected calling such dark things revelations, inspiration, visions, and from God.
Can we not see our own fruits? Can we not recognize that when our hearts are filled with hurt feelings or offense or fear or anger or accusations or self-righteousness that we are being filled with the wrong spirit?
My heart cringes at the thought of any of us being captured by hell, at the horrible, horrible feeling we will have at the feet of our Maker when we are filled with the sinking regret of having done such harm to our God, when it is everlastingly too late - when we can to nothing to change the harm we have caused to our fellow-humans and to ourselves, when we finally see the utter pain and agony we caused the Lord by throwing His gift of pain and suffering into His loving face.
I have seen friends and acquaintances in this movement offended. I have seen them argue. I have seen them withdraw.
I have seen and heard of groups falling apart or on the verge of collapse.
I have seen offense taken when none was intended.
I have seen issues, that should have been taken to the Lord for healing-of-self, brought out in fruitless discussion as people fought to be understood, when true healing could never happen as long as their base of belief was rooted in the very real wounds of the past that was causing their tendency to take offense in the first place.
I have seen many, many solutions brought forth that seemed -to me- to be the solutions of men (meaning people in general). I have seen many solutions brought forth that seemed straight from God. And I have seen most of those many solutions dropped by the wayside as people focused on solving the problems from a Babylonian mindset, even while they thought they were going about it in the manner God wanted.
Don't get me wrong: I am absolutely NOT setting myself up for a light. I have also taken offense. I have also reacted by defending myself verbally, thus causing even more offense because I could not objectively see what was actually being said. I was filled with fear. I tried not to return the threat I felt, but I think it was returned - as none of us knew how to communicate with Love and without our baggage and wounds.
Being unable to fully trust people, having been beaten down and kicked too hard by life and by people in these last nearly 60 years, being unable to even comprehend real Love let alone show it, I turned to my God for solace. I could not open up to other people and say how threatened I felt, how scared I was by the perceived attacks, so I turned to the Ones (the Father and the Son) who knew my soul.
I was given answers. I was given understanding. I was given revelation. And that understanding was very specific: Pray for those who are frightening you, making you angry, offending you. Have compassion for their weaknesses, even the ones that make no sense to you because there are many things in your own life that someone would look at you and say, "You can't do that?!! That's easy-peasy. You're awfully lazy and worthless if you can't even do that simple thing that everyone in our society does!"
So I should give what I desire to receive, even if I never receive it. And that is - kindness, praying for those who we think are against us (and definitely for those who we are sure are against us). Let us pray for their happiness, for their healing, and do so with an attitude of understanding that their weaknesses don't feel good to them. They need our help to overcome. And we give that help by doing what Eva and Andrew have done: forgiving, praying for those who despitefully use you, slow to take offense.
Let's Do This, People! Let us rise up and fulfill the measure of our creation! Let us find the Lord. Let us live by every word that proceeds out of His mouth instead of by what proceeds out of our own broken souls.
Let us all not cause our Lord more sadness and pain because of our own selfishness, and pride.
Look what He has done for us. Cannot we not at least love Him in return enough to ask for His help to see our weaknesses? To see when we contend, jar, and hurt each other? To own our fears and offenses (hurt feelings) and take them to our Lord and to our God so that we may be healed from those pains? To learn to actually trust Him more than we trust anyone and anything else? And let there be no mistake, I am preaching to myself just as heartily as I am preaching to others. Perhaps moreso, because my fears extend to fear of being alive. I hate this place called "life" most of the time. I am more broken than any of you, of that, I am sure.
Amen.
