The bad news keeps rolling in.  There’s enough bad news to depress me and a hundred Richard Simmons look-alikes for years.  It’s true.  Has anyone else noticed?  I shudder to be detailed, but consider the previous three posts to be just the beginning.  I won’t comment on a bailout that has yet to be fully read by…anybody? though already voted in.  Worldwide economic crisis.  What’s an economic crisis if you’re already…well, here’s an eye-opening video.  I read a statement by Britain’s minister of conservation (may have that title wrong, but the guy in charge of the government’s ecology department) on the responsibility we have to reduce global population, basically calling it criminal to have more than two children per family.  That’s our old pal Britain, folks, not China.  Ms. Pelosi aligned us squarely with that sort of thinking repeating “NO apologies!” to G. Stephs about using the stimulus package to reduce federal costs (of healthcare and education) through funding abortion.  Less children, less healthcare and education, she says.  My hometown, Chicago, is breaking ground by opening the first public high school specifically for gay and lesbian students. Obama’s election was the first time I heard the media openly act offended at a preacher with mainstream values being invited to the inaugural.  There’s a lot more, but I’ll stop there.  For the first time in my life, I stuttered over the Pledge of Allegiance when I visited Ariel’s preschool the other day.  I will always love America.  But…something much better is coming.  I have joy.  Here’s why…

In the midst of crying out to God over the injustice (described in part in the previous post), I saw a picture that has stuck in my Spirit.  In it, was a small cave with a beautiful woman hunched over inside, unable to stand fully.  It was a simple picture.  She was getting attacked and pestered within the cave, and finally had to come out into the open.  When she did, the sunlight hurt her eyes for a moment, but she finally stretched out and stood tall in the sunshine.  She was stunning, and much, much stronger out in the danger zone that she had been while in hiding.  It was a picture of the church (I took it to be the American church), and the cave was friendship with the world.  For so many years, the church has thought that it is a good fit with society at large.  Lots of church folks’ idea of “reaching out” is to befriend the world so very, very nicely that they might think church is kinda cool.  You know, sneak attack.  “I think like you, I look like you, I talk like you, I’m concerned about your issues, I even watch the same stank on TV you watch.  On weekends, I pay $9.75 for it!  See, if I can do this Christian thing, you can, too!  Not as hard as you thought!”  But God’s committed to His Son’s bride.  So if she won’t kick the bedbugs out of her bed, God’s going to let ‘em bite!

It’s a bit circular.  The church keeps trying to befriend the world, she’s chasing favor, chasing favor, chasing favor from man.  She forgot that God said that friendship with the world is enmity with God.  Obviously, He can’t hand His power over to enemies.  No power, no converts.  No converts, more befriending.  More befriending, more enmity.  What will end the cycle?  When no matter how nice we play, we are abused, ridiculed, and offended, when they finally kick out the believing remnant from friendly society…well, the church will have to stand up.  And see how lovely she is.  Tall, overt, unapologetic, loving, truthful.

Powerful.  Not political.  At that point, she’ll be so unwelcome in politics, silly arguments will be outdated fast.  She’ll have money for the poor, because she’ll probably be mostly poor.  She’ll seek justice like crazy, because the oppressed will be…her.  She won’t be throwing change into the starbucks AIDS fund, she’ll be laying hands on the sick and seeing them healed.  She won’t be arguing with other believers about God’s power, because He’ll have settled those issues with some obvious displays, and every other believer will be so precious, she’ll long for their company.

She won’t be showy, rude, or ugly, because the shoes of the gospel are peaceful.  Someone who tells the gospel STRAIGHT is a lover.  A people lover, dying to make peace.  She won’t sell a soft gospel, talking about causes, races, or finding a place to be accepted, because she’ll have been humbled by waking up with the smell of the world on her and crying out for mercy.  All that stuff just comes out of a personal disassociation with the need for the Cross, anyway.  But she won’t have that anymore; because the Cross will save her (from titles, and compromise, and powerlessness, and glitzy self-promotion, and theological wranglings, and fleshy bandstands, and personal impurity, and widespread hypocrisy, and just plain confusion), and so she’ll take it up and bear it.  She’ll love much, because she’ll have been forgiven much.  Her kids won’t leave her out of boredom and weakness in their high school years  or for social justice and intellectualism in their college years, having found no deliverance from their sin.  They’ll grow up in the fire of God, and have no taste for the world.  Wow, good times are coming…I’m sure of it.