The Longer I Run

So there I was, scrambling to catch up on reading for small group last week, and God went ahead and placed one word in my head:  lukewarm.  He did not, however, see fit to place any particular context with it.  I was reading about the will of God, but the author had made no mention of being lukewarm or anything that really even corresponded with it.  I knew it had to have been a word from God and I knew almost immediately the reference and what I thought he was trying to tell me.

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish you were either one or the other!  So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth.  Revelations 3:15-16

 I'll admit, I did have to Google that. And it may have also brought up some Katy Perry lyrics along with it.  Regardless, I know what God was trying to tell me by pulling that one little word to the front of my brain.  I was lukewarm.  I believed in Him, but I did not trust Him.  I was not staking my faith, my life on Him.

What I mean by that is, when I acknowledge it, there are some very real and very potent fears in my heart.  Fears that fuel indignity and more so, anger within me.  Even though I have become inconceivably less angry and unhappy over the course of the last 5 months, I have still been hanging on to fears that I shouldn't be.  And the Big Guy was totally calling me out on it.  And it sucked.

He was calling me out on eternity.  You see, despite knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loves me, despite reading texts such as Love Wins, despite being an affirmed Christian since the age of 8 or 9 there were times I would still bog myself down with the thought of being separated from that love.  Of an eternity in Hell.  I would get angry at God for his seeming injustice, unfairness.  For feeling like I was created to be abandoned.  I was so wrong, and God knew it.  Duh.

Lukewarm.

How could I be so blind?  He is omnipotent.  My God is all-powerful, all-knowing.  My God is good.  In being lukewarm on the issue of my salvation I was essentially rejecting these qualities of God.  I am so thankful that I no longer have excuse to be lukewarm about my ultimate fate.  His plan is my destiny and I know that as with all of his beloved children, my eternity is meant to be spent with him.

I originally wrote most of this in my journal this morning while sipping some delicious Costa Rican coffee and saturating my ears with some Liszt, yes, Franz.  I didn't really intend to share it with anyone, just let it serve as a reminder to myself and testament to God.  Then I remembered that testaments are meant to be shared.  Then I saw the Oreo cookie post.  Twice.  It was the second post with a link to actual comments on Oreo's Facebook page that changed my mind.

I like to think that I am open to other people's views.  That I don't write-off their opinions as I believe many of them would write off mine.  I think that I am a pretty open minded person.  But sometimes it is so hard to look at or hear those other opinions and not get discouraged.  To have a word that is used to describe one aspect of you in one context and in the common vernacular be used to describe something stupid, or lame, or  wrong.  I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer here.  Truly, there is so much love in this world that I feel like I am only really feeling for the first time.  There is so much that has changed and so much that will continue to change.  I am so thankful for the revelations of God in my daily life, in my friends' lives--I want to share it, I want to hear about it.  I am thankful for the 16-year-old homeschooled, child of Evangelic Conservative Christians who also happens to be a lesbian and out and willing to call out those who don't think she can be gay and love Jesus and like Oreos.

Mostly, I feel sorry for those people commenting such harsh things about rainbow Oreos right now...because we're going to spend eternity together and it's still going to be exponentially more flabbergasting than multi-colored Oreo fillings (which for the record look kind of disgusting).  Oh, and more incredibly awesome too.

-KL