The Overcomers--Revelation 12:10
In the midst of learning how to become an Overcomer through this weird tromp through Revelation in Matt Chandler’s The Overcomers: God’s Vision For You to Thrive in an Age of Anxiety and Outrage, Karen is preparing for surgery at Duke next week.
The Duke surgery nurse called yesterday and we all talked for about an hour–bowel prep instructions for the night and day before surgery, her diet after the surgery, and recovery times.
I idly flipped through the Duke Patient Portal while we were talking and found the surgery order:
GASTRECTOMY, PARTIAL, DISTAL; WITH GASTROJEJUNOSTOMY
COLECTOMY, PARTIAL; WITH ANASTOMOSIS.
We had to use Google for every word except Partial.
There’s a lot of removal of tissue involved–part of her stomach to then be reconnected to her intestine and a removal of part of her colon, with the two parts reattached.
Curiously, the order doesn’t include REMOVING A CANCEROUS TUMOR the size of a baby’s head.
So, I think it’s good to learn to be an Overcomer, because there’s going to be a lot of that in the near future–especially for Karen.
After the phone call with Duke, we stood in line for two hours to vote since we won’t be in place on Election Day.
Again, an act of overcoming, I think.
Later, I sat down to read and meditate on the next part of Revelation through Chandler’s book and slipped my headphones on and up pops Audrey Assad’s new album, Kind and Honest
I’ve listened to a lot of her incredibly holy and beautiful worship songs in the past and my music aggregator keeps track of what I listen to.
The songs on this new album are still incredible–but the lyrics lack the holiness, the ethereal beauty of her previous work.
There aren’t worship songs. She’s sort of wandered onto Adele’s corner.
When I looked around for a review of her latest work, I found out why.
Assad has deconstructed her faith. She’s as busy taking down the scaffolding around her cathedral of faith in God and Jesus Christ as I am in putting it up.
Like I was feeling yesterday, overcoming is hard work and who really wants to spend the spiritual energy to fight off the world–all the time?
In an interview with a podcaster, Assad relates her current thoughts on faith in God:
“There’s something deeper than that underneath it and it’s in everyone and in everything. And that is what changed: I believe that God is in a blade of grass, just like God is in me. And I was coached away from that type of thinking, of course, where I was brought up and warned of the dangers of that. And it has only healed me and enriched my life. And that includes Jesus and the Cross, and Christianity, and everything that I was raised to believe. And I think really learning not to reject it but instead to embrace all. That’s how I view it now. “
Hmmm. She considers her faith deconstruction more of an evolution past faith in salvation through Jesus. than a falling away from God.
There’s a lot more, which I found interesting–but after a while, it’s just psycho-babble gobbledygook.
It isn’t lost on me that gobbledygook could describe my daily spiritual output too. 🙂
And certainly John’s visions in Revelation, read through literally or even metaphorically, could be considered a giant vat of indecipherable gobbledygook.
I picked up in Revelation 12 where the angel, MIchael, and his platoon of angels fights off the Dragon in Heaven and throws the Dragon and his minions out of Heaven.
Revelation 12:10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,
“Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before our God day and night.
So the Dragon is on earth now, Accusing us of being rotten and deceitful and accusting us before God.
This is the spiritual war we are in and must overcome.
Unless, like Assad, I decide that belief in such stuff is too prehistoric and restricting to the modern version of myself.
Chandler describes the accusations of the Dragon:
“If the enemy can hassle you to the point that you believe God cannot love you because of your sin or cause you to despise others, he’ll cut you off from the power to wage war against him and rob you of the glory and joy of walking in victory. If he can get you to doubt God’s love and delight in you, you’ll run from God rather than abide in His presence. You will neglect the Scriptures, which are the sword of the Spirit and you won’t labor in prayer, which accomplishes more against the enemy than we can imagine. This is his primary tactic, and we’re oblivious to it.”
What does a person have if they don’t have the power of the Holy Spirit through prayer to get through the worst of the world?
I’m sending good thoughts and good universal vibrations your way?
Thanks, Audrey. 🙂
Tim Keller writes in The Reason for God:
What happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won’t! You’ll have…a God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in a real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination.”
When I look at the messiness of John’s Revelation, I want to throw my hands up and say that’s preposterous and too weird to adopt into my nascent holiness.
But if you are like me, you keep at God’s Word. You explore what’s going on in the words, around the words, and what others are saying about the words.
Dr. Jordan Peterson writes:
“When you explore boldly, when you voluntarily confront the unknown, you gather information and build your renewed self out of that information.”
For me that means constructing faith.
I can’t sing about it and Lord knows, you wouldn’t want me to, but I can share that exploration as best I can.
Like Audrey Assad asks but from the other side of the scaffolding–How About You?
I’ve been coming out of hiding for a minute now
I know that I’ve been changing
I know that I’ve been changing
How about you
I’ve been longing for my life to feel like solid ground
I’m asking deeper questions
And laying down my weapons
How about you?
You’ve got choices.
Choose wisely. 🙂
Lord, we thank You that the enemy, the Dragon, the accuser of our souls has been defeated. Help us to walk in victory of that truth.
Lord, help us cast off fear and guilt and help us to know that nothing can separate us from Your love.
Amen.