Soooo … what’s the latest crisis I’m supposed to be indignant about? I’m having trouble keeping up.
Earlier this week The Washington Post issued a pretty major correction to a January 9 news story about then-President Trump’s December phone call to Georgia state election officials. Here’s some commentary (i.e. opinion), including video, on the implications.
And you wonder why people invent their own truth.
And believe what they want.
Trust no one.
Sigh.
Be careful little eyes what you see and believe.
I’ve noticed a trend in some faith communities to which I’m connected. People seem obsessed with their inability to measure up to some standard they think God expects of them. They seem fixated on an angry, vengeful, bloodthirsty version of the almighty. A version I don’t find in scripture, although twisted under the influence of Satan, humans could certainly make it look that way.
Some react by living their lives cowering in fear over messing up, perhaps manifesting in perfectionism, legalism, overachievement (ism? I just now made that a word), depression, anxiety … you get the picture.
Some react by obsessing so much over their particular sin issues it becomes an inescapable addiction.
Some react by rejecting faith and the existence of God altogether. Some get trendy and call it deconstruction.
That’s not how it works! That’s not how any of this works!
This week’s episode of the Things Above Podcast resonated with me. James Bryan Smith interviewed Kyle Strobel, who has co-written a book on prayer titled When Prayer Becomes Real.
Around the 22-minute mark, Kyle shares about a phenomenon he noticed in his seminary students.
“I didn’t relate to it until I saw it in them and then I started thinking, ’Oh I’ve done that before.’ They try to atone for their sins in prayer by beating themselves up. They see their badness, their failure to pray well, and then they turn on themselves. And they kind of are, ‘Oh get your act together! This sin again? Are you kidding me?’ And they kind of turn on themselves.
They’re doing this little one-man play or one-woman play before God, hoping that God sees them and kind of puts the lightning bolt down. As if God’s waiting for a harshness so he doesn’t have to be.
In almost a kind of a pagan way they’re trying to use these disciplines to kind of get their tethers in God to get God on their side so they can manipulate him for their own purposes. And I’m like, that’s exactly what I’ve done in prayer.”
Kyle mentions Romans 8:1.
Therefore there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. ~Romans 8:1
I’d say keep reading through about verse 27 for a more complete picture.
Now in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ~Romans 8:26-27
Friend, did you hear that?
We’re free. From sin. From the need to sin. From the need to obsess about it.
We. Are. Free.
As this guy says, free free free free.
Maybe we should act like it more often.
