Cause for excitement

"When the proverbial 'sh## hits the fan' among us, I get really excited about what's 'already happening' in His response."

-- Yours Truly

"Out-of-control troublemakers are our greatest blessing, because they force us to re-evaluate who and Whose we are."

-- Yours Truly

I love fireworks, even of the human variety. I love great explosive displays of color, heat, and light. Nothing is more like that than when God steps in to a real and totally unpredictable firestorm of human lunacy to deliver His grace and mercy. We already know how it all turns out, because He has already solved the problem for all time. So, if we have that clarity and right perspective, we are free to get real excited when things go way over-the-top crazy and out of control, when everything seem to be running amuck, and when the totally self-absorbed expressions of human depravity and meanness seem to know no limits, and when clearly no amount or quality of human intervention can change or solve anything. This is truly "the stage being set," and, if we're present and faithful, we can pull out our lounge chairs and watch with joyful expectancy, going oooooooohhhh, aaaaaaaaaaahhhh! at every new miracle.

Well, the days are here, and ##it's really flying all over the place, way more than I can handle (Thank God!), and people are driving over the cliff screaming their battle cries, and I am really excited, and in total awe of the imminent and inevitable! I just can't wait to see the next miraculous display of His endless, outrageous, wondrous creativity!

And sometimes our aligned efforts and intentions appear to help another in the short term, and sometimes they definitely doesn't, but in the end it always works itself out, according to His plan. The following exchange is from the rather difficult movie, "Into the Wild," based on a true story about the futility of running away from our relational lives. Ron was waiting with a light about a yard outside the gates of Chris' hell, but he still couldn't stop him from his self-appointed kamikaze mission of discovery. Sometimes, although it doesn't seem to change things very much for the one, an open, loving heart can crack open and pour itself out and fuel stories and reminders that deliver encouragement and insights for the many.

Ron Franz (brilliantly played by Hal Holbrook): I'm going to miss you when you go.

Christopher McCandless (passionately played by Emile Hirsch): I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us. It is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.

Ron Franz: Yeah. I am going to take stock of that. You know I am. I want to tell you something. From bits and pieces of what you have told me about your family, your mother and your dad... And I know you have problems with the church too... But there is some kind of bigger thing that we can all appreciate and it sounds to me you don't mind calling it God. But when you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines through you.

Christopher McCandless: Holy shit (as the sun breaks through the clouds at that precise moment)! (And then later) But what if some people feel like they don’t deserve love? Can't they just walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.


And as some people I know "walk away" into those dark "empty spaces," trying to close those painful "gaps of the past," I still hold God's flashlight, calling out to them. I'll even sit with them for a while and talk things through, sharing stories and points of view, and I can listen to their hearts for a very long time, for I have walked in their shoes, and I can even be part of God's fireworks, if need be, but I won't chase them down, or try to fix, rescue, or save them. That would be the most dishonoring insult of all.