Live Free or Die

"LIVE FREE OR DIE" -- New Hampshire license plate logo (quote from General John Stark)
“Walk free from the long shadows cast by small people.”  -- Fennel Hudson
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." 
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Charlton, 1809
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Paul the apostle, Galatians 5:1
"I just wanna live while I'm alive." -- Jon Bon Jovi, It's My Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAy9HEfR1dA

Found at Pexels - https://www.pexels.com/photo/low-section-of-man-against-sky-247851/

Of late, I have been doing considerable thinking about the concept of freedom and what it means. Wars and insurrections have been started for it; marches and protests have been staged for it; churches preach it and still people every day live in bondage, all the while thinking they are free. 

Such was the Galatian church's dilemma. They fell into the doctrine Jesus called "the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I despise..." in the book of Revelation. Basically it was the doctrine of "Jesus AND." That is, they thought that it wasn't quite enough to believe that Jesus died to save them from the wages of sin; oh no. They thought that one had to follow a strict code of rules and regulations in order to "keep" what Jesus had already provided for them free of charge. So Paul reminded them that Jesus was enough, and to stand in that freedom with grateful hearts that serve Him out of love and not out of fear. (Judy's paraphrase). 

How much of life do we spend living in fear!! A fear-based religion is one where the rules get stressed and so do the people as they try to keep them all. Living life fearing that if they do the wrong thing enough, or if they don't do the right things enough, God will be angry or at the very least displeased, sounds like a recipe for the performance-based focus of a lot of churches I have been to - and believe me, I've been to a LOT of churches of nearly every evangelical stripe. I've even heard this kind of "Jesus-AND" heresy preached from the pulpit in some places - that yes, Jesus saved you, but you gotta hang onto your salvation by doing, doing, doing. (Never mind BEING in an intimate relationship with Him that produces love and WANTING to please Him, oh no.) And in each of these churches there have been (percentages are approximate) the 8% who embrace that kind of thinking totally and judge those who don't toe the line, the 5% who get tired of being yelled at and leave, the 85% who beat themselves over the head every week for "not doing enough" and even come to expect the verbal abuse and welcome it (i.e., the religious masochists some of whom often also pray for revival because they know instinctively that something is wrong), and the 2% who actually are in a love-relationship with Jesus in spite of what they hear or experience at church. 

The thinking that the 'price of liberty is eternal vigilance' (1809, see above quote) came into being either during or shortly after the American Revolutionary War that led to its independence from Great Britain in 1776. Americans were afraid that the mother country would try to retake the colonies. But I believe that the thinking crept into the church as well, gaining a foothold of error just like the one that had taken hold of the Galatians. People LIKE the idea that they can have a say in their own destiny, not feeling entirely comfortable with the idea that salvation is a Divine initiative and even free will is absorbed into God's omniscience (aka predestination) - not that God decided who would be saved and lost, but that He knew in advance who would be (a subtle difference it is, indeed), because He knows all and is eternal, existing apart from Time. It takes nothing away from personal responsibility, but God being God will make His plan happen either through or in spite of us. (Think of free will and predestination as two sides of the same doorway. On the outside is written "Whosoever will" and on the inside is written "Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.") 

But I digress. The kind of freedom I am talking about is freely given but to be earnestly and fiercely defended. I don't mean "defending the gospel" or using the Bible to cut someone apart with, as is the habit of many I've known in my life. What I am talking about is real freedom from the chains of "should" and "can't", freedom from fear, from cringing, from self-loathing, from what others think, even from what God thinks. (Try not to tar and feather me here; hear me out.) The truth is not that God is counting our sins or that He has this huge club waiting to smash us when we mess up. The truth is that we were forgiven before time even began, and Jesus came to Earth to show us that the way to personal relationship God was open to all. He came to take us by the hand and bring us to God (reconciliation) so that we could see that God viewed us as holy and blameless before Him. All we had to do was say Yes to Him - and we walked through the doorway of free will into the blessed truth that He has forgiven us ALL of our sins: past, present, and future - and made us a part of His body. His life courses through our spiritual veins. We are free. 

The old gospel men's quartet, The Imperials, used to sing a song called "Praise the Lord" featuring blues singer Russ Taff. One of the verses (and the chorus that follows) goes like this (emphasis mine),

Now Satan is a liar, and he wants to make us think
that we are paupers when he knows himself we're children of the King. 
So lift up the mighty shield of faith, for the battle has been won, 
we know that Jesus Christ is risen, so the work's already done!

  Praise the Lord - He can work through those who praise Him;
  Praise the Lord - for our God inhabits praise!
  Praise the Lord - for the chains that seem to bind you
  serve only to remind you that they drop powerless behind you
  when you praise Him.

I don't know how many ways I can say it. We are FREE. He has FREED us. He has redeemed us from slavery. We could not buy our own freedom; He bought it for us to prove His love for us and acceptance of us, just so we could feel FREE to be in relationship with Him. Just like old times. Just like the Garden. Walking with Him. Talking with Him all the time. Every moment, not a chore but a delight. Hello!! 

So yes, my heart's cry lately has been this, in the words of Bon Jovi : "I just wanna live while I'm alive." He has called me, like Lazarus, from the tomb. I don't want to toddle around still wrapped up in those putrid graveclothes of duty and obligation and fear. I want to be free! I want to ... Get Unwrapped! 

Turn it around!

Last week, I had the opportunity to go and visit my brother, who has been having a whole laundry list of physical problems. Angina, obstructive lung disease, kidney dysfunction (was at 15%), insulin-dependent diabetes, colon cancer (operated January 2017; they got it all!), gallstones (he has a bag draining his gall bladder because it was too dangerous to operate last January to remove it after his cancer surgery), and that's just the major stuff. 

I had gone over to his place to take him to an appointment and found him gone - and several phone calls later (finally one to the police, who found him) I learned that he had gone to the hospital the day previous. So I went to see him in the hospital. The doctors had told him that the blood test results were positive for the enzyme that is there in the blood after a heart attack. So yes, he had a heart attack, thinking it was angina. They told him he had a couple of "occlusions" - which means that he had blockages in a couple of his arteries.
They were talking about taking him to a better-equipped hospital so that they could do the stent procedure: inserting a small tube inside of the artery to allow the blood to get past the blockage.

Serious stuff - especially considering that the procedure involves shooting dye into the bloodstream in order to see what they're doing in there - and the dye is very hard on the kidneys. For him, with 15% function in his kidneys, it was dangerous. 

Before I left, I obeyed an inner prompting and went over to him. I laid my hand on his abdomen and spoke to his kidneys. I told them in Jesus' name to restore to function. For good measure, I also told his pancreas (which produce insulin and where diabetes happens) to behave themselves. 

When I called the hospital today, they told me that my brother had been to the other hospital for the procedure and was back in his room. I eventually got a chance to talk to him. 

Photo "Eagle In Flight" courtesy
of Jeff Ratcliff at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

He sounded wonderful - more energetic and chipper than I had heard him sound in many months. He said he felt better, and was actually sitting up in a chair when we were talking. He told me that his kidneys did not shut down; in fact, they were working better than they were before the procedure. His progress again astounded the doctors. 

A few posts ago, I talked about how prayer has been changing for me in the last couple of years or so. It's less about asking for things or praying "for" people, and more about deepening the relationship with my Father by spending time with Him. I also mentioned that Jesus didn't pray for people to be healed. By the power of the Spirit, He demonstrated the power of God - by speaking to the problem and commanding it to leave. Since I started doing the same thing, believing with His faith (and not my own), I have seen so many miracles happen that I've lost count. Some are "small" - and some are not. 

I don't say this to brag; I can take absolutely no credit at all for this. NONE!! It's all been Him. Even the faith I use to speak healing and wholeness into people is not mine. It is Jesus' faith (see Galatians 2:20 - "...the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith OF the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.") And the only reason I'm sharing this now is because the knowledge and experience that God has given me about the authority He has delegated to us because of Jesus - has revolutionized the way I pray, the the way I believe, and the way I relate to Him, to myself, and to others. 

I want to encourage other believers to step outside the trap of "oh-please-oh-please-oh-please-oh-please." Rather, we as believers need to step outside of the strain, grunt, and shout mentality and into the rest, relax and trust mentality. We need to know, really KNOW who we are, and rest in how much He loves us. We need to turn it around, to turn our thinking around. We commonly speak death and calamity on the people we pray for (and you have heard this happen as much as I have) by praying our fears out loud and giving God an escape hatch in case things don't work out (called "if it be Your will").  Instead, we can speak to the problem - just as Jesus did, and trusting in HIS faith - and watch in amazement as it obeys.

Because it will. It will. 

Nothing but the Bow

Rainbows. The symbolism of all colours being present in Light is one of the greatest things about them. The Father of Lights is a fitting name for the Creator and Source of such a lovely phenomenon...

The first rainbow recorded in the Bible appears after the Great Deluge - the Flood. God decided to share something that is always present with Him - the "bow" - (more about that later) with mankind, but He set it in the cloud. The bow symbolizes mercy; the cloud symbolizes judgment or justice. 

On Earth, the bow naturally cannot exist without the cloud (water vapour); we only see half of a rainbow (a semi-circle) at most, because our vision is limited by the horizon. 

But not so above. Although the bows we see cannot be seen from space because the clouds are in the way (did you catch the symbolism? when there is too much judgment, mercy cannot be seen), astronauts have documented seeing their reflection in the water - and on rare occasions, one of those who have, also said that he saw the whole circle reflected on the ocean from above - a remarkable experience. 

One other person said he saw one ... a whole circle ... long ago. The apostle John, in his vision on the island of Patmos (while in exile for his faith) saw a rainbow, a full circle - but there was one major difference from the rainbows of earth. There was no rain, and there was no cloud. There was only the Bow. It encircled the throne of God.

Nothing but the Bow. Only mercy. No judgment. NONE. Total acceptance, with no cloud obscuring, hiding, barring the way. 

What a contrast to the way most people think of God... as a harsh judge, jumping on every little failure, angry and foreboding, waiting to say, "Gotcha!" as he crushes us under his thumb. 

But that is not how God is. If that is your view of him, it is distorted by the cloud of judgment, by the limitations of our earthly system. I might even go far as to say that a lot of people create their god in their own image - and call him God. 

If you want to know what God is really like, look at Jesus. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father," Jesus said. 

Photo "Double Rainbow" by Evgeni Dinev
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

The myth of an avenging God is just that - a myth. Jesus hung out with the dregs of society: the hooker, the double-dealing bookie, the eunuchs (by the way, these were as close to trans people as folks dared express in that day), the poor and the lepers, the downcast and downtrodden. Even the rich and / or religious who sincerely sought the truth, He did not turn away. 

I don't know who this other god is that people fear (are afraid of) so much. He certainly bears no resemblance to Jesus. So my conclusion is that he must be a false god, a puny god.

My God loves. My God accepts. My God has a Bow surrounding Him with no cloud: mercy WITHOUT judgment. He is (and gives) Love without conditions, peace without distress, joy without reservations. Anyone who tries to say otherwise is selling their own, limited brand of god, limited by human understanding and logic. God created logic, and science, and intelligence, but He defies description, exceeds comprehension, and surpasses anything our minds can conceive. 

There is therefore no fear; there is no judgment; there is no condemnation; there is nothing but love, acceptance, and mercy. Nothing but the Bow. 

If you are struggling today with not feeling good enough, always feeling as though you have to measure up, let that go today; those feelings do not come from Him, but from your limited view of who He is. He has nothing but mercy for you. He has nothing but acceptance for you - just the way you are. He has nothing but love for you... whether you feel that or not. It is true!  Let Him remove your inability to see Him the way He is... You will never regret it!   

Making room

You make room for what matters to you.  I've heard people say this. I've said it. And I believe it's true. 

But what if what matters to you, after you have made room for it, becomes so deeply ingrained into you that it's like breathing?  Well  ... then you just breathe. You don't think about it; you just do it. And when you are prevented from doing that, you fight with every ounce that's in you to regain that thing that is like air to you. So the question becomes not whether you make room for something but WHAT you make room for ... WHAT will eventually become indispensable to you!!

When it comes to spiritual things, there are a lot of people who have made A room for God and all things spiritual. It is a nicely furnished room - filled with warm fuzzy feelings and lots of symbolism, music and pretty things. Or they furnish it with war banners and weapons of self-righteousness (but that is another post for another time.) There, in that space, they are able to contain their faith, compartmentalize it, give it a place to exist without fear that it will overtake the rest of their life or make any real changes in them or in their world. After all, that would be fanaticism. Right? 

Photo "Fountain" courtesy of dan at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

But I'm not talking about making A room for God. I'm talking about making room - allowing Him to overtake, fill, overflow, and transform everything we are. 

Listen to the words of Paul: "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear..." (Colossians 3:4). This is how He becomes so deeply infused into us that we cannot imagine life without the assurance of His presence... living in constant contact with Him, bubbling up from within us like an artesian well of clean, refreshing water. This is where prayer becomes an act of intimacy, as I spoke about in my last post. This is where God's love becomes a moment-by-moment reality, not one of those struggle-to-believe-it things, but a wonderful reality, making us naturally burst forth in an automatic grateful outpouring of worship and praise, an eternal fountain of confidence in His power and grace. 

From that fountain (which comes from that artesian well!) we CAN speak with His authority to the problems we see and experience in our (and another's) life. We CAN command sickness to leave. We CAN banish oppression. We CAN - because He has delegated that authority to us.  And - I say again - we don't even have to rely on our own faith; we have His ... so there is no doubt that can creep in, no faith-killing phrases, no negativity. There is only His love, His power, His faith, His authority.

How can I say this? Because ... I've experienced it.  The last few months in my life have been a testament to how strength, provision and miracle after miracle flow from this supernatural source of living water! Those who know me best know about these miracles - but I will give a couple of examples, just from the last 3 or 4 months, of commanding sickness to leave and seeing direct results:
(1) my own diagnosis of pre-cancer of the uterus, followed by a complete hysterectomy (almost fully recovered and feeling better than I was before the surgery in some ways), and 
(2) my brother's diagnosis of stage 1 colon cancer, the fact he actually survived the surgery, beat gall-bladder complications, and his kidney function (stopped at one point) began to improve. The doctors are still baffled. But we both know what happened: the authority of Jesus released through the spoken word and producing healing!

And these stories need to be told; there is no arguing with experience! 

In the same way that we can make room for God and His power, we can also make room for the enemy of our souls. I explained it to one person this way: death and life are in the power of the tongue, the Psalmist said.  When we, as ambassadors of Christ, speak and agree with the words of satan, we make room for him to do as he pleases. He kills. He steals. He destroys. And those innocent predictions (fears, worries) that we make out loud or even to ourselves? They actually make room for the enemy to have his way, for him to win. When we make room for satan by words of negativity, doubt and fear, we hand over to him the power over those situations to actually do what it is that we fear the most. I've seen this happen, time and time again. And it's so unnecessary!

However, when we take that forfeited space back - when we make room for God's passion for us to come to the fore, and we speak those things that He wants (life, love, healing, peace, joy, grace, strength, wisdom) then the enemy of our souls is routed, overthrown, and defeated in that situation. We walk in God's love. We don't try to convince people; we just live in that life-filled place, breathe, sleep, eat in that reality where God is large, in charge, and for us (Romans 8:31). We make room for God to have His way in us - to take His rightful place. Not because we "should" but because He loved us from start to finish before we even were conceived. Such lavish love is enough reason to make room.

Prayer changes

This morning I read one of those well-meant phrases that Christians are known to say, and say often.  "Prayer changes things."  I know I said it for years - but my view of prayer and what happens during prayer has changed in recent years.  I used to think that when someone had a need or a physical problem, we were supposed to pray to God for them to have it resolved or healed ... but as I've learned more, I really don't think that's what prayer is for. Besides, I've really listened to some of the prayers that have been prayed for people who are sick with this or that disease, and I hardly think that they sound like "the prayer of faith" that James talked about when he said for the sick person to call on the elders of the church for the laying on of hands. Rather, those prayers sound like worries, and pleading, and doubting ... as if God must be placated. And the usual result of those prayers has been exactly the opposite of what the person believed himself or herself to be praying for.  I've seen it happen far too many times for it to seem like coincidence, so much so that I hesitate to ask for prayer except from a chosen few whom I know to NOT pray like that.

Off and on for the past few years, I've been examining the ministry of Jesus when He was physically here on the planet, and I've discovered something about prayer by doing so.  Jesus very rarely prayed publicly. Most of His praying was done in private, or when He was alone, while He was in public ministry. So I looked at the most famous time when Jesus prayed in public ... and what I saw rather shocked me.  

It's in one of my favourite stories in the New Testament - the raising of Lazarus from the dead (this is in John chapter 11). You'll recall that Jesus had heard that Lazarus was sick and then stayed two more days where He was. He then told His disciples that they were going to go to see Lazarus - that Lazarus was dead and that He was glad He was not there when it happened ... so that they would believe.  (Keep that statement of purpose in your back pocket). 

When Jesus got there, all He seemed to find was unbelief -or belief to a certain point and then ... nothing (that is, they believed that He could have healed Lazarus when he was still alive, but now that he was dead, all bets were off). Eventually Jesus convinced the family and friends to roll the stone away from the tomb door. ("Didn't I say that if you believed, you would see...?")  And then He prayed.  But it wasn't the kind of prayer that we often hear in healing services, which sounds like ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease.... as if God has to be cajoled or convinced to do good to us. No, Jesus didn't pray like that.  Here's John 11:41-42 -

Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me. (NASB)

From this prayer, I can draw these conclusions: 
(1) Jesus knew that God had already heard Him; 
(2) Jesus knew that God ALWAYS heard Him; 
(3) Jesus never once asked God to raise Lazarus from the dead; and 
(4) He only prayed aloud in front of people in the first place because He wanted the people who were standing around Him to believe that God sent Him. 

What does all that tell me? 
(1) Jesus had complete trust in God's goodness, and didn't have to gather it up and strain and grunt and groan to produce it or to convince God that He had faith; 
(2) Jesus got that faith from the hours alone He had consistently spent with God in private (more about that in a bit); and 
(3) Jesus was demonstrating that you never ask God to do what He has delegated TO YOU the authority to do yourself. 

Then He turned toward the tomb and called - ONCE - to Lazarus ... to come out of the tomb. And Lazarus did. Lazarus was dead - he had no faith - he wasn't even there; he was in Abraham's bosom, beyond caring what happened to his body. His family and friends had the kind of faith that believed in platitudes, and they had no faith that Lazarus would be raised. JESUS believed. JESUS called to the dead man. And that, my friends, is how you heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons ... because remember folks, Jesus had laid aside His divinity.  He was fully human and relied on the living, eternal Holy Spirit to live out His life through Jesus ... to the world.  He modeled how we could rely on the Spirit too, just like He did.

The source of Jesus' faith was (is) in the relationship that He and the Father had (and still have!) Over and over again, we read in the gospels how He got up long before daybreak and went to be by Himself... to pray to the Father. What was He doing during that time? Some have said He was getting His "marching orders" for the day. Having lived in the Spirit - I really don't think that's it. Living in the Spirit is like getting the "marching orders" (so to speak) right at the time they're needed. It's a lot like flying by the seat of your pants ... so again, what was Jesus doing in prayer? 

I have a radical suggestion.  What if Jesus was simply maintaining closeness with His Dad? 

Image "Couple At Sunset" courtesy
of piyaphantawong at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Think about it.  What if prayer is simply developing and maintaining intimacy with God? and by virtue of that very intimacy, there develops a deep, inner knowing that God is with you, for you, in you, caring for you, loves you without reservation, and longs to connect with you - and with everyone - on that level?

So does that kind of prayer change things? Hmm, for me, that's up for debate.  I don't think that it's true in the sense that most people think about when they refer to "things" - that is, events and so forth.  Things may not change; other people may not change; circumstances may not change.  However, I'm more inclined to think that this kind of prayer changes the pray-er.  Inside. I believe that prayer aimed at developing and maintaining intimacy  grows faith and confidence, and strengthens the person who prays (who draws close to God) so that the Spirit can do His work in and through that person. The purpose of this kind of relationship prayer is so that the person, in drawing close to God, accepts God's unconditional love and is able to recognize the leadings of the Spirit. With that kind of confidence in God, we won't need to ask Him for anything, or to do anything. We will know He is with us.  We will rely on the Spirit, and with His leading, we will speak to whatever problem presents itself in the way and at the moment that He chooses.

This is how Jesus lived His earthly life. As I have come to ponder this reality more and more, I have changed; my prayer life has changed.  I no longer pray like I used to pray. I just enter His presence and deliberately become aware of His love for me. I meditate on His love and His goodness. I start to grasp His good intentions toward me and toward all people. I remember that He has already given to me all things (including HIS faith!).  

I remind myself that He has given me the authority that Jesus had when He was here on the planet ... authority to speak to the mountain, to speak to the sickness, to speak to death, to speak to demons in the name of Jesus ... and expect these things to be dislodged and banished because He wills it. I don't have to drum this authority up (it's already given to me!), I don't have to dig down deep to access my own faith (Jesus already believes for me!) and I don't have to raise my voice.  I don't have to be theatrical about anything.  I just trust in His love.  Then my whole life becomes a prayer - a song of dedication - an act of worship.

In this way, the practice of prayer is not so much about me, but about Him, about His love, His goodness, His passion, His desire to bond.  That is what I am learning.  This realization is removing all that pressure that I used to feel that it was somehow up to me to pray harder and believe more, because it would be my fault if I didn't do it right and somehow someone got sicker or the dark side won.  It's not about that at all. It's about Him. If I enter the picture at all, it's in the area of realizing how greatly He loves me - how amazing He is - and in the area of growing in intimacy with Him.  Only then can I grasp onto the power that He has given to me and use that power to do His will: loving and speaking life into a dying world.

The Broken Hallelujah

There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
                        - - Leonard Cohen (1984)


I like Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" better than any other version I've ever heard.  I've heard a couple of different versions where someone (because it's in the public domain and because they liked the tune but not the words) has put different words to the music - words that they thought would be more uplifting - and while the new words were more uplifting, something inside me somehow felt like singing other words to it was being (for me) ... disloyal or wrong at a core level.

Okay, part of it is because I'm a songwriter and I know what it's like when someone takes your song and puts words in it that aren't there. It's like someone pronouncing your name wrong. Every. Time. It grates. It just does. 

But most of it (in keeping with the whole author thing) is that the original song has a message that a lot of people miss. It's about the broken hallelujah.  

Photo "Sad Woman Sitting Alone In Room"
courtesy of FrameAngel at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

As most everyone knows, the word hallelujah means "praise the Lord."  Cohen was inspired by King David's story of brokenness  -  how he fell into adultery and lost his throne over it - and still worshiped God.  David's hallelujah was a broken one. But it was a hallelujah nonetheless.

Something I heard at a worship conference years ago may help me explain what I mean.  Internationally known worship leader Bob Fitts came to lead worship at our church once, over 10 years ago, first by talking about what worship is and isn't, and then by doing it and inviting us to join in.  In his talk, he was saying that all worship is precious to God, but that the worship that arises out of our brokenness is the kind where He draws closest to us, whether we are aware of it or not. That we choose to worship Him during those times, when our hearts are breaking, touches His heart. It takes far more courage to worship God when one's world is caving in than it does when everything is going right. Especially when the worship is not asking for anything ... except possibly for an awareness of His presence.

Hence the broken hallelujah. I've been there - broken, I mean - ... many times. One important time comes to mind especially today, the 3rd anniversary of our family being informed of my daughter's death the previous night.  It's been those kinds of times when I've reached up like a drowning person only to grasp nothing but emptiness, when I have felt alone and frightened by the intensity of my emotions, when I have depleted my strength and my ability to withstand the harsh, accusing voices in my mind, that God has reached out to me and in love, mercy and grace, reminded me that He is with me and that he really loves me. His love is so great - and the worship - born from trust in that love - rises from me even through the pain. It's a broken hallelujah ... gurgling up from blubbering lips and a throat that feels swollen and choked, sobbing past hot tears and a broken heart.

Here's the secret though.  It's both a broken AND a holy hallelujah.  That's how I see Leonard Cohen's message, even if he might never have intended it that way. His original message was that the holy and the broken hallelujahs were of equal value - and in a way, yes they are. But the broken ones are holy in themselves, maybe even the most holy ones. 

There's a blaze of light 
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken hallelujah -
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu-jah.

WORTHY

Of all the lies ever perpetrated by organized religion, perhaps the most insidious one is that we are unworthy worms, vile creatures, wicked and repugnant to God. Intended to spark humility and the fear (i.e., respect) of God, this idea of wretchedness has been the enemy's number one tool to incapacitate believers around the world for centuries! It is a killer. It kills faith. 

The logic goes like this: "I'm so unworthy, I don't deserve to lift my face toward the heavens, and God surely wouldn't listen to such a filthy rotten failure like me. Even if I dared to pray, there's no way He would ever consider saying yes to me because I'm so ugly and dirty to Him.  And even though Jesus has made me clean and acceptable because of the cross, well, that's still not enough because I see all too well what I'm like, and I just know that there's no way He'll ever listen to little old me. After all, just look at what He had to go through to redeem me!"

It's a cleverly devised lie, because it is mixed with truth. Yes, Jesus went to the cross and endured such a horrible death to redeem us, but not because we are worthless worms.  He went there because He values us so greatly that He would do anything to prove to us how much we are worth to Him!

Remember the story of the ugly duckling, the cygnet (swan chick) who was hatched in a family of ducks and never felt good enough?  That is a metaphor - a symbolic picture - for us.  The reality was that the "ugly duckling" was not a duckling after all, but a swan, regardless of how unworthy he felt. Keep that picture in your mind.  Not the taunts of the so-called siblings, not even his own reflection in the water compared to those of the 'brothers and sisters', not the revulsion that he saw in the eyes of the adult ducks, changed the fact that he was a swan - destined for far greater, born to beauty and majesty. The day he knew his worth was the day he heard the swans calling him from on high, and caught a glimpse of his reflection (now transformed) in the water just inside the broken ice prison he had made for himself.

That's us.  Born to beauty. Worthy.  Valuable.  Loved.  Called.  Yet so many of us still unaware that we are His treasure, that we are the apple of His eye.  We always were.

It makes no difference to its worth whether a diamond is in a crown or in a pigsty.  It's a diamond.  It has intrinsic worth - that is, it has a value that is in and of itself, and isn't dependent on its surroundings.  We are His JEWELS!

Photo "Ring With Stone" courtesy of
Boykung at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Another - and perhaps more meaningful - metaphor is the (modern) story of Rapunzel.  (Even though Grimm wrote the original story [which is AWFUL by the way], I prefer the version that Disney did recently, because it ends WAY better!)  Never mind the romance piece for now - that's a different story to tell.  Let's look at Rapunzel herself: a princess who doesn't know she's a princess. Hear me?  Not only a princess - but one with magical giftings to heal and rejuvenate, but which are used by a selfish, cruel power (Mother Gothel) who pretends to be her mother.  Yet at every turn, this woman belittles her, tells her she is fat, or stupid, or lazy, or demented (crazy).  She uses the girl's bestowed power (expressed through her long, magical hair which must never be cut or it will lose its power - can we see the symbolism of Samson here?) for her own purposes and intends to keep her imprisoned forever.  Gothel builds a culture of shame and mistrust, and yet Rapunzel longs for something more - and eventually is drawn to see the lights that appear every year on her birthday.  For far away, the heartbroken King and Queen lift the lanterns to the skies in her honour every year, hoping that one day she will return to them and take her rightful place.  When Rapunzel sees these lights up close, she feels like she belongs there somehow.  Soon, she puts it all together and realizes that she IS the 'lost princess.'  And knowing who she is changes everything about how she perceives her upbringing; she sees the witch for what she really is.  

That too is us.  We have been sold a bill of goods and we have just accepted those voices (often voices we hear expressed in those old self-hating, self-torturing hymns and the fear-based traditions of the organized church) that tell us that we must be crazy to think that God would hear us, that we are delusional to think that He would care about the little things of our lives, or that He would love us unconditionally and beyond measure.  Or the voices say that yes, God loves us but only if we behave ourselves.  Or that He hears and answers prayer but that if we don't receive answers, then we must be doing it wrong.  

No.  We are the King's sons and daughters.  We are precious to Him, worthy to Him. He dotes on us, and hears our faintest heart's cry because He delights in us.  We cannot offend Him!  We cannot! And why would we want to?  Being aware of a love that great can only produce love in return ... (another post for another time).

Can we grasp this? Is this not good news?  Can we accept that He is far greater and far more loving and accepting and GOOD than we have ever allowed ourselves to dream?  The Word says that He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think --- so basically, more of every one of those wonderful things (like love, acceptance, and goodness) than we can imagine!  Well I don't know about you, but I can imagine A LOT!  A WHOLE LOT!! If we could conceive of a greater, more loving God than God Himself, would that not mean that the god we have been believing in isn't really God at all?  Because, in order to BE God, He'd have to be so far beyond our capacity to comprehend or imagine that we couldn't think or imagine of anything greater!

Yes.  Yes He has set His love on us.  We have laboured in the sun, but He finds us beautiful, ravishing.  

We are worthy in His sight.  We are. Oh that we might be able to SEE His love - to experience it in our deepest heart - it would transform every moment into something sacred!

The "quid pro quo" fallacy

For those who may not be familiar with the term quid pro quo- it is an ancient Latin expression meaning that if I do something for you, I expect to get something (of approximately equal value) in return.  It is usually associated with business, but has been used in social situations and relationships (usually business relationships). 

And sadly, it has seeped like e-coli bacteria into the groundwater of Christian doctrine, causing spiritual diarrhea, dehydration, and death.  Let me explain.  

Spiritual quid pro quo is the idea that in order to get something from God, we have to give something to Him. In such a mind-set, faith is no longer an expression of love (as the scriptures say) but currency - spiritual cash - to be used to bribe God into doing what we want Him to do.  

Oo. That sounds harsh, doesn't it?  We don't really do this, do we?  But we do!!! Here is what Joel Osteen said on his FB page recently: "God never promised that life would be fair, but he did promise that if you will stay in faith, He will take what’s meant for your harm and use it to your advantage."  (emphasis mine).  What he said really jumped out at me. Really. And not in a good way. 

Now, I think that what he was talking about was Romans 8:28 - that God causes all things to work for good to those who LOVE Him (remember we love Him because He first loved us!) and who are the called [ones] according to His purpose.  Romans 8:29 goes on to say that the "good" that God works all things together for is that we are conformed (not that we conform ourselves) to the image of His Son.  There is nothing in that passage about "staying in faith" - whatever that is. OR anything about OUR advantage (in the sense that is implied in the Osteen quote). 

Or maybe he was referencing 1 Corinthians 10:13 - you know, God doesn't allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape, so that you are able to bear it.  OOps, well, there is nothing in that passage about "staying in faith" either - or anything about turning bad things to our "advantage". It just promises an escape hatch, a way out.  Because He loves us. And He wants us to succeed. Not so that we will be victorious (that's a fringe benefit) but so that we will know deep inside that He is interested in every single thing that happens to us. Because He is head over heels gaga about us, in the same way that a good daddy is gaga about his little baby, who, by the way, is unable to do anything for itself. (That's another blog post.)

Photo "Hand Holding Dollars" by jannoon028 at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

The underlying premise of that Joel Osteen quote - the way it sounds to me - is that if WE keep believing, God will rig the game, and hoist people or circumstances on their own petards and bring them low so that we end up on top. But only if we keep on believing.  The emphasis is on us and our effort, and encourages the "what's in it for ME?" attitude.  The onus (or responsibility for the outcome) is ALSO on US ... and frankly, that seems to go against the love of God, the initiative He took in looking for the first, best, and most inescapable way possible to prove to us that He loved us all along.  It doesn't fit.  The self-centred, quid pro quo way of thinking is more like a transaction than an interaction, more narcissistic than intimate. It's religion and not relationship.

Okay, just so you know, I'm not picking on Joel Osteen.  I'm just using one of the things he said recently, because it seems to reflect and represent a lot of the teaching and thinking in Christian circles ... teaching that has been around ever since I can remember, and not just in one small slice of one denomination.  It's in the whole church.  It's formula-based thinking: A plus B has to equal C.  Put another way, you pray (that's A) and you believe (that's B) and therefore, God is obliged to (HAS TO) deliver on His promise (that's C).  Strange ... that's not what I read in the examples left for us in scripture.

Job prayed for his kids every day. They still died - at a party I'm sure Job wouldn't have approved of.  Sure, he had more kids at the end of his story - but every parent instinctively knows that having another child can NEVER replace, or heal the pain of losing, the first.  It is there. Always.

Moses, Gideon, Samson, Jeremiah, even King David ... these people knew from experience that it doesn't matter how much faith you have or don't have, or how long you pray or don't pray - God does whatever He wishes and chooses whomever He pleases ... because He is God. He is sovereign.

The three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace? Yes, they were delivered. But they didn't believe they WOULD be necessarily. They knew God COULD deliver them - but they were willing to be put to death.  They said to the king, "...even if [our God] does not [deliver us], we still will not bow."  That speaks to me more of passion for the God they loved rather than an "if we - then He" kind of thing.  Doesn't it?  

The same thing happened with Daniel and the lions - Daniel was willing to die rather than stop his relationship with God. God was that important to him. That he was delivered was a bonus.  He didn't expect or demand deliverance; he didn't go around the palace anointing everything with oil for protection before his prayer time.  He just prayed ... as usual.

And let's not forget that the most anguished, heart-felt "deliverance prayer" by the most righteous Person ever ... ended by saying, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

We can slip so easily into self-focused it-all-depends-on-how-hard-we-believe thinking, because it feeds the lie we have swallowed whole ever since the first Lie: that there is something that WE can do to better our lives, to cover our nakedness, to appease His anger (because after all, WE feel inadequate so He must see us as inadequate, right??) or to gain a reward (or keep ourselves from losing a reward - yikes!).  But the simple and amazing truth is that He has loved us the whole time, and continues to love us, and will never STOP loving us NO MATTER WHAT.  Until we begin to grasp how deep and unconditional that love is, all our efforts will have been for the wrong reasons, and we will have missed out on something very special.

The Bible is full of examples of God intervening into the timeline, and something about those interventions that strikes me almost more than anything else is that He never does the same thing the same way twice.  It follows, then, that we cannot expect Him to operate the same way He did last week or last month, or forty years ago.  It doesn't matter how long we pray, what words we say or don't say, what places we go or don't go, what format we use, how much we tithe, how many verses we read, how many Bible studies we attend, how many positions we hold in the church, or how many good deeds we do. There is nothing that WE can do to twist God's arm.  The brownie point system does not work.  In fact, it misses the whole point.

Let's think about how this fallacy translates into what church has become. We chase that elusive "presence" and tweak the song service ("worship time" - as if worship only gets penciled in for maximum 45 minutes once or twice a week) like it depends on US whether God shows up, as if He needs just the right atmosphere ... and as if it is up to us to create it.  Wow ... what arrogance. There is not something "anointed" (read: magical) about this song or that song, this speaker or that worship leader or those flags or that bottle of olive oil.  We can't manipulate the conditions that we think produce the results we want, or even the ones that "worked" the last time. We cannot manipulate God; He won't have it!  He will find a way to break out of the box we have put Him into.  Or (worse yet!) He will withdraw, because (after all) we think we have it all figured out, so why do we need Him?  Either way, He won't play our little self-constructed games designed to prove to each other (or to ourselves) who is His favourite. (Don't we know better than that?)  

Our spiritual disciplines and good deeds are not currency.  We can't treat them like bargaining chips (or bribes) to get what we want. If we do, we have it all backwards.  We have bought into the mammon myth - the I-scratch-your-back-and-you-scratch-mine lie.  This is relationship with God. This isn't the world system. God isn't some CEO to impress, He's the One Person in this whole universe who loves us just the way we are, no strings attached.

God is not about sticking gold stars or "good job!" stickers on our chore charts.  He invites us into His embrace - to clamber with glee onto His lap - and experience His love for ourselves: unfettered, unashamed, unafraid ... like children.  There are no agendas, no conditions.  He is about relationship; there is no need to feel obliged (or required) to add anything of our own to what He has already done to the uttermost.  To do so, in order to qualify for the benefits He has already freely given, would be falling from grace.  All that means (contrary to popular belief) is that we would be missing out on God's highest purpose for our life - intimacy with Him - and settling for what we can (try to) get out of Him.

Prescription Lenses

When I was 40, I was having daily headaches, and the headlights of approaching vehicles hurt my eyes, and my husband (who has worn glasses since he was 8 years old) suggested that I get my eyes checked. To my surprise, I needed prescription lenses ... and as I have gotten older, I have moved to bifocals.  It is natural for me now to reach for my glasses as soon as I get up in the morning.

It took me longer to realize that I needed spiritual glasses.  I grew up in the church, became a Christian at age 11, and I didn't realize that the constant sense of pressure and pain I was feeling was from all of the imposed expectations of everyone around me to conform to some code of behaviour in order for me to be accepted by them.  I just thought it was part of my "cross to bear" or "vale of tears"... and carried on.  I traded what was really important to me for whatever the fad was in worship style or [what was preached as] doctrine.  I touted all the buzz words, acted the part, and attended every event.  But inside, I was hurting.  I began to wonder if this was all there was, because if it was, then I was getting more and more unhappy.  

I got a glimpse - in late 1982 - of a different kind of life, a life of adventure and purpose and joy. This lasted a few years, and I consider it one of the best times in my life.  However, the divine unconditional love I experienced during that time eventually got crowded out by others' expectations ... again.  Once more, I was back on the road of ever-increasing misery.  For a long while I blamed myself - and even my kids - for what I thought was the culprit: being too busy.  It wasn't being busy. It wasn't my kids.  And it wasn't me.

It took a long time to connect the dots, some thirty plus years, in fact.  All I knew for sure was that when I was engaging in pure worship, nothing and nobody existed except God and His love for me. I literally lived for those times, thinking that they were rare and they were what kept me going.  And I thought that it was because of the worship (translation: music, atmosphere, harmonies, etc.) when really, it was because of the Love. It was the Love. 

I eventually learned that the "worship" changed depending on who was leading it, and more and more I experienced the Love less and less as those ever-present expectations flooded in and knocked intimacy with Him sideways, like a flood pushing aside a load-bearing wall.  As more people started spreading alarmist doctrines and motivating people with shame, guilt and fear, I began to experience more than just discomfort ... the Love-seeker in me began to detect a disconnect between what I really needed and what was available to me in that kind of atmosphere.  Increasingly, I saw that atmosphere as toxic to my spirit.  For a time, I thought that perhaps it was just the location that was doing this - the need to keep up a building - and that small groups might be the way to go.  And then the church I was attending started having small groups - and I saw that their structure was exactly the same as the large group that met on Sunday mornings.  It was all the same, all based on fear and shame and control, all regimented and rules-based.  No, I figured, that wasn't the answer. I began to lose hope.  Despair started to sink in.  And the whole time, I kept doing ministry, going through the motions, and feeling just awful.

Photo "Young Beautiful Woman Shopping
In A Market" courtesy of nenetus at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Then, a couple of years ago, a friend of mine put on a new set of spiritual prescription lenses.  She ditched the expectations and cloistered herself in with God and sincerely asked Him to reveal who He really was to her.  And God did.  And she was so blown away ... surprised by what she found and delighted, because it was what she had always been searching for but never found ... and barely would have believed.  

Her life literally transformed.  She had found the secret, which had been waiting the whole time for her to just ask, to go and ask God to check her spiritual eyes.  And He did - and gave her His prescription: His unconditional, supreme, passionate, all-pervasive and pure Love.  I watched and listened as she explored more and more facets, getting closer and closer to His heart.  She even began re-reading the Bible - as she put it - through the lens of His Love.  And she was surprised and amazed at how this new prescription changed how she had always interpreted certain passages with which she always had had issues.  The lens of God's love was just what she had been looking for.  She lost her fear.  She lost shame.  She began to experience God's over-the-top, no-holds-barred Love.  And she couldn't help herself ... she was happy!

And you know, happiness is incredibly attractive! 
I saw how joyful she was now - and how free!  And I remembered those days in the early 1980s ... and thought a lot about what it was that made those days special ...  It was Love!  All those buzz words and platitudes I kept spouting, all the speaking in faith, the pronouncing of blessings, the victory marches and the spiritual warfare sessions, all the exorcisms of empty rooms and the hours spent at the altar "seeking" or "birthing" ... they only served as smokescreens obscuring the Main Thing:  God's unconditional Love. 

The more I concentrated on that Love, the more out of place I felt in any regular gathering-place that SAID it was about His Love and yet focused on all those other things (like surrender, being Spirit-filled, and being obedient) as if they were the ultimate goals.  More and more I began to see that - as usual - the cart was in front of the horse and impeding the horse's path.  And as I looked back over my life and all the places I had attended church, I understood that every single assembly I had gone to had put that stupid cart out in front of the horse.  To one degree or another, they all laid burdens (of duty, obligation, and fear) on people's backs and didn't lift one finger to help them, unless they were grieving a loss - and even then, the break from those guilt-based and fear-based burdens was short-lived. 

They had the wrong lenses on - those God's-out-to-get-you lenses - and I was so sick of being surrounded by that.  It got so that I would typically arrive home after church literally exhausted and drained from the constant avalanche of duty-this and fear-that, of do-this and shun-that.  My stress level multiplied by a factor of ten when I was at church.  I did not consider it to be a safe place where I could be myself. 

My husband was feeling the same things.  Eventually (like the elephant in the room) we talked about it ... and after much prayer, soul-searching, and wrestling with all the what-ifs (which took a whole year), we decided to unplug.  Not from God, you understand, but from the organized church.  We had church-surfed before; they were all the same.  We needed - pardon the expression - to "go into detox" from religion: all those extra trappings that most people equate with Christianity but which really are NOT, nor do they bear any resemblance to the joy-filled, love-infused connections He originally designed for His people. Why? for no other reason than this simple truth: He Loves us. No conditions, no formulas, no jumping through hoops, and no limits.

Since that time, our stress level has vastly reduced, and God- because I know you are curious - has set up wonderful times (on His timetable) where we get together with other believers (as He chooses) and feel lifted up and strengthened rather than worn out and weary.  We are able to pray without feeling obligated to pray, to give or to pour into people's lives without being manipulated by shame, and to enjoy little blessings as from Him without the need to say, 'Praise God' after every sentence.  (He knows we are grateful - and His knowledge of our hearts is all that matters.)  Our family is far closer.  And we are growing in the knowledge that He loves us no matter what!! 

We are slowly learning to use our new Love-lenses, and everything seems so much more natural that way.  We don't have to strain and strive to live the Christian life; it just naturally flows out of realizing more and more His overwhelming Love for us. We are learning to see the Love shining through the pages of scripture.  We are less afraid to feel what we feel without apology, knowing that He is real and expresses what He feels, so it is okay for us to do the same.  There are no regrets.  There is only an overwhelming sense of gratitude for being completely and totally accepted and loved to the uttermost.  

I like these new Love-glasses.  I can see much better with them.

Light in darkness

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about John chapter one, and more specifically about the references in the first few verses to Light and darkness. It says in that chapter that the Light shines in the darkness.  Now, to me, in my human understanding, that means that the darkness exists but that when the Light shines, the darkness flees.  That's not what the passage says. It says that the Light shines IN the darkness, ... and that the darkness (does not flee, but) does not comprehend the Light. 

Whoa. That takes a person aback, doesn't it?  It doesn't make sense to us because we go into a dark room, we turn on a light, and the darkness goes away - that's what darkness is, isn't it? the absence of Light?  

Not here in this passage. John is talking about a kind of darkness that it doesn't matter how bright the light, it does NOT go away, nor does the darkness have any concept of Light.  Well, what kind of darkness cannot understand Light?  

There is only one answer that is possible: blindness.  

Suddenly all makes sense.  Jesus said to the Pharisees, "... because you say, 'We see,' your blindness remains." (John 9:41) 

And herein lies the darkness, dear friends.  The darkness consists of insisting that everything is fine, actually believing that it is so, while all the while stumbling around in darkness, in blindness, not even aware that there is so much more: so much more freedom, so much more love, so much more Life than we ever thought possible. Yet all the while, blazing white Light is all around, piercing through everything, illuminating Life all around us, shooting rainbows and moonlight in our paths, and yet unseen by the blind who will not see. 

The darkest of all blindness is the one in which the blind one has convinced himself that he can see.  It is religion, religious ritual and self-righteousness, hypocrisy and wallowing in fear that God will take out His big cudgel and squash us like bugs. But ... God is not like that.  That's why Jesus came!! The Word says, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself..." (2 Cor. 5:19).  

And Jesus stands and proclaims that the Spirit of God is upon Him to preach the good news to the poor, to proclaim deliverance to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free those who are oppressed. (Luke 4:18).  In reality, those who are blind in the way that John 1 reveals are poor, and captive, and oppressed - by virtue of their own -- OUR own -- blindness!  Jesus came to prove God's love to us in a way we could understand, and we killed Him for it in our darkness - our lack of comprehension.  But when we first turn to Him and ask Him to remove our blindness, He does - and we can see the Love that was there all along, and the Light that has brightened our path if we but knew it! This Light is transformative, redemptive, and irrevocable (Rom. 11:29). 

Photo "Sun In The Sky" courtesy of graur razvan at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

When we are in darkness, in blindness, we can do absolutely nothing to rid ourselves of this sad state; HE is the only One who opens blind eyes.  We only ask.  He does it - He does it because He wants to do it, and has been waiting for us to ask Him!  

This makes salvation and even faith itself (Eph. 2:8d) something that He does on our behalf, and rightly so - because if we could, we would boast about how much we did, how much we believed.  It is HIS faith!!  Galatians 2:20 says in the original Greek, "...and the life I live in the flesh, I live by the faith OF the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."  Not IN, but OF.  That means that it is JESUS' faith and we can have confidence in His faith because it does NOT waver!! 

Can we see how much this frees us to live in happy gratitude?  Can we? The pressure is off! the love of God is unconditional, the grace of God is free, and the faith of Jesus in His Father is rock-solid! Hahahahahahahaha!! What glorious liberty!  what amazing love!  how bright the Light is!!  How delirious the joy that comes from total and complete acceptance in the Beloved One! 

Can I make it any more plain? This is GOOD news!! This is what the apostles were ready to die for!  No adding to it; that only takes away from it!  No reservations - that leads to bondage!  Pray God that He will open our eyes to see the wonder of His full, free, intense, passionate, scandalous love for us!

Live Free or Die

"It was for freedom that Christ has set us free..." (Eph 5:1)

Following tourists on the road is something that is not unknown where I live. Tourism is big business, especially in the summer, but now all year round, we get visitors from all over Canada and the United States. One thing that we do to pass the time is try to guess where the tourists are from by the colour and pattern on their license plates, before we are close enough to read the location  - and once we get closer, we read the motto under the location name.  One of my favourite license plates is from Vermont, USA. Its motto is "LIVE FREE OR DIE"... a reference to the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence.  

I've been thinking a fair bit about that motto. I guess that all my life, I've been heading toward that kind of desperation -- that I would rather die than not live free (in other words, death before bondage). Mind you, it takes one whole whack of bondage to get that fed up with it that you'd rather die than live in it.  But it does happen.  It does.  

And you know, that might seem like a really awful place to be, but it is absolutely necessary to get past all the mindless platitudes and living in shame and constant fear of messing up - and get to the threshold of a love-based relationship with Someone who is totally and completely ga-ga about you. 

Photo "Happy Jumping Child"
courtesy of chrisroll at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

In unconditional love, there is unbelievable freedom.  There is no freedom in conditional love, only lots of fear that the love will be removed and the lover must be appeased.  Really.  I'm not sure about you, but doesn't that sound like what most people experience when someone starts talking to them about the Christian life?  Oh no, they don't tell that to the unbeliever - they save it for after you're in the door, to keep you scared enough so that you don't step out of line and go for a big juicy sin steak and fries on the side.  (Huh??)  

These folks are really comfortable talking about right and wrong: who's right and who's wrong, what behavior is and is not allowed, how hard and long you have to pray to get answers to prayer and the reasons God won't say yes (mostly to do with blaming the victim) ... and they get really worked up about it! 

But start talking about the unconditional love of God, and people either get wistful ... or they get scared - scared that you're advocating a lifestyle of license. (Yeah, right, Someone loves me to pieces, so much that He gave everything up for me in order for me to have everything He does, so yeah, the first thing I'm going to do is something that will hurt Him.)  Wow.  Just ... wow.  How warped is that kind of thinking? Better yet, how warped is the kind of thinking that would think you'd even go there? 

Now that I think about it, maybe the saying, "Live free or die" could be a statement of fact in addition to being a clarion call to liberty at all costs.  Think about it.  Unconditional love is already yours.  Whether you accept it or not is your choice.  You either accept it and live in freedom ... or you die.

I want to live.