Vengeance is Mine

I'm still chewing on Total Forgiveness and as I read on today I had some more thoughts. Often times in our lives when we see injustice, we want retribution immediately, and often times we take it on ourselves to be the judge or punisher if you will.

But that angers God. He said, “Vengeance is mine and mine alone”, we don’t have the authority to be a judge because we are flawed people. Kendall said in his book, What if every time you judged someone an angel of God came down and told the person you were accusing all of your sins? Would we feel so bold to point the finger then?

David was considered to be a man after God’s own heart. Yet even David could not escape the justice of God. He would have to answer for his sin of sleeping with Uriah’s wife and then having him killed so no one would find out about it.

You read in 2 Samuel the harsh punishment that God gives to David through the voice of Nathan the prophet, “The sword will never depart from your house!” Wow what a sentence! You see later on in David’s life his sentence being carried out in 2 Samuel, David’s illegitimate son with Bathsheba dies, later his other sons rise against him, his closest friends die by the sword, one of his sons sleeps with David’s wives on top of a roof in public for all to see.

What I am getting is that God doesn’t need our help in being a judge; he does just fine by himself. Nobody needed to carry out vengeance on behalf of Uriah’s honor. God saw everything and even though he loved David, David needed to be corrected. My conclusion is not very good, but I think I got more glimpses at God’s character and also mine through today’s little bathroom study of Total Forgiveness.

Do Not Judge, or You Too Will Be Judged

So I am still working through this book my pastor gave me called Total Forgiveness.

It takes me a while to finish a book because I only read when I'm on the John. Oh I also got distracted with this other book I bought Fedor.

It's an MMA book about Fedor Emelianenko, arguably one of the best mixed martial arts heavy weights out there. I know I'm such a dork.

Anyways, yesterday I was reading through a passage about Jesus' command "Do not judge, or you too will be judged."

I am one of the most hateful and critical people I know. I love to hate, and I love judging and criticizing people. But when I do judge and criticize, I am essentially saying that person needs to change, that person needs to be more like me...I am better than that person.

I really need to look at it from this perspective the next time I want to judge someone harshly. I should be the last person to say I am better than you because I am a terrible person. My friend often jokes that some people come with baggage, but you come with one of those immigration bags! It's true.

Jesus is saying if you judge, others will judge you. There are probably a lot of people I know that don't like me for one reason or another. People might think or say, I'm a punk, insensitive, mean, angry, who does he think he is. More importantly I think Jesus is saying don't judge or God the ultimate judge will also judge you.

I already know he has given me so much grace, why can't I afford the same grace to others???

New NFL Overtime Rules

Every season the NFL adds, takes away, and makes a bunch of changes to the way the game is played, and in true fashion Roger Goodell has done it again. I feel like overall he has made a lot of changes to ensure the safety of the game and its “superstars”, but he has essentially robbed it of its grit and made the game that I fell in love with soft.

So what do I as a fan think of the new overtime rule? Well first let me lay it out.

• Both teams must have the opportunity to possess the ball once during the extra period, unless the team that receives the opening kickoff scores a touchdown on its initial possession, in which case it is the winner.

• If the team that possesses the ball first scores a field goal on its initial possession, the other team shall have the opportunity to possess the ball. If [that team] scores a touchdown on its possession, it is the winner. If the score is tied after [both teams have a] possession, the team next scoring by any method shall be the winner.

• If the score is tied at the end of a 15-minute overtime period, or if [the overtime period's] initial possession has not ended, another overtime period will begin, and play will continue until a score is made, regardless of how many 15-minute periods are necessary.

Confusing right? Like many of its other rules it’s pretty drawn out.

However as a betting man who loves betting on football, I think it works in my favor as the better team has a greater chance of winning and not losing on a fluke 40 yard pass that puts the other team in field goal range.

If they really want to make the game of football more interesting, they should just get rid of the field goal and extra point kick all together. I guess because they adapted the game of football from rugby, they just kept it in even though it doesn't seem to fit into the rest of the game. (stupid British)

We all know football is a game of inches. 11 players battling another 11 players in a ground war, trying to gain ground into their opponents end zone. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere, this other team comes on and rallies around this Italian guy who tries to kick the ball through a big Y! Just doesn't make any sense. Hey, but What the Hell Do I Know (What the Hell Do I Know is the name of my blog, see I'm being witty).

Aggresive Morning

Good Lawd what a morning! I had a very aggressive morning from the moment I stepped out of my house. We get out and Christian is running to my car as he always does and there is this huge pitbull lurking in our yard, from first glance he looked unleashed. He was actually on one of those long 25 yard leashes.

So I called for Chrsitian to come over and the owner comes up and say, “Oh he’s not a biter, he’s a licker.” And he just keeps his dog near us like we want us to pet it or something. I said, “Dude I don’t want to pet your dog I’m trying to get to my car.” Then he looks at me like I am a pitbull hater or something.

Then on my way to drop my son off I come to a 4 way stop and the car to my left doesn’t go, so I just cut in front of him. The guy driving gets pissed and starts to follow me. He follows me all the way into my preschool. So I get out of my car and he drives by me giving me a mean look, then makes a u turn around the parking lot and comes creeping close to me.

So he ends up pulling right next to me and so I walk towards him ready to get into a fight. The guy comes out and so I slowly approach him and he asks, “Is there a problem?” I am a bit confused and then I say, “You’re the one with the problem!” and I kind of tense up in a fight position to let him know that I am ready to throw down. Then his wife yells out, “Sir we are just dropping off our son, it is our first day!”

Then all of a sudden I realized that this was all in my head and that I was the aggressor!

I immediately apologized and told the guy it was all a my misunderstanding. Then I follow them in with Christian looking and feeling really sheepish. The family was obviously frazzled and cautiously held the door open for me. They were probably thinking they chose the wrong preschool.

Inside I apologized again, the mother asked me for my name and we all shook hands, but I still felt like everybody was unsettled.

I seriously think something is wrong with me. =)

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 2 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. Maybe it speaks to my pessimistic, depressive side. As I was reading through it today something stuck out that I never thought about before.

After writing about each of his worldly, pleasurable experiences he ends each thought with, yet through all this my wisdom stayed with me. I thought that was particularly interesting because here is King Solomon the wisest man on earth trying out all the best the world has to offer to please a man. And he comes to the conclusion that it was meaningless, pointless, boring, nothing, like chasing after the wind.

If the smartest and wisest man that ever lived is telling us this, we should take his word for it.

Darkness

Whenever the Bible talks about darkness I don't think us modern folk really comprehend the full meaning. Even at night we can still see pretty well because of street lights and just the overall brightness that constantly surround us from city lights.

I’ve only encountered total absolute pitch blackness a couple times and it is very scary. Sometimes I forget that people around the world still live without the constant brightness of city lights to shine their way.

The Sin of Forgetfulness

I think one of the gravest sins one can commit is forgetting where you came from. Or put another way, what God has brought you out of. As humans being so full of sin, we are so short focused, always thinking about the here and now that we often forget to reflect on the journey and the trenches of our life.

For the Israelites their sin came out in the form of grumbling. In chapter 16 of Genesis you see them wandering in the desert hungry, and they voice out their complaint to their leaders Moses and Aaron. “ In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."

Now we all know that their memory was very short sighted. They forget they were slaves in Egypt, mistreated, abused and forced to work for no wages. Yet all they can remember was the pots of all you can eat food, which probably didn’t happen all too often.

How often am I like that? This morning while I was driving to work I was listening to one of my CD’s and Boys II Men’s I will get there came on. The lyrics go like this:

I've been wanderin' 'round in the dark
Been lost somewhere where no light could shine on my heart
I have known a pain so deep
But I know my faith will free me
And I'll get through this
I'll find my way again
So don't tell me that it's over
'Cause each step just gets me closer
I will get there

I will get there somehow
Cross that river
Nothing's stoppin' me now
I will get through the night
And make it through to the other side

I've been in these chains for so long
I'll break free and I'll be there where I belong
Hold my head up high, I'll stand tall
And I swear this time I won't fall
I will do this
No matter what it takes'Cause I know no limitations
And I'll reach my destination, I will get there

Then all of a sudden like a jolt, all of these memories started to rush back to me and tears of repentance started to well up in my eyes.

You see I used to listen to this song over and over again 12 years ago because it spoke to me so. I felt so lost then and felt very much like the Israelites did wandering in the desert. It was safe to say it was the darkest time in my life and I barely made it out. I was in the midst of a 3 year alcohol and drug bender. I was probably drinking 1.75 liters of Whiskey every week. The weekends were full of going to parties and dropping ecstasy, smoking weed, crystal meth, dropping acid. Thoughts of suicide prevailed around in my mind all day. I would often sit in the shower and just let the water from the showerhead pour on me for hours at a time, maybe thinking it had some redeeming effect.

I was going to grad school for counseling at that time. I never told anyone this but I didn’t actually quit grad school, I got kicked out because I was coming to class wreaking of alcohol. My classmates and professors got wind of it (literally) and asked me to take a year off. And so I did. And that year was full of me doing absolutely nothing. Well I am actually selling myself short. I did catch up on every single episode of 90210, and every movie and syndicated television show from the past 5 years that I missed out on, since I was on a media fast for pretty much my whole college career.

I pretty much woke up at 2pm every day, poured myself a cup of Black Velvet whiskey on the rocks and plopped myself in front of the TV all day. Then on the weekends I went out to either a bar or a club to damage my brain even further.

So getting back to my point. During that time, this Boys II Men song came out and it really spoke to me. It spoke of brighter days, hope of a future worth living. And I cried out to God in tears asking for help. And He did. It did take a lot of effort on my part to snap out of it. It was a conscious decision to stop smoking, drinking, doing drugs. The thing about the life of an addict is that you can go on like that indefinitely. You need to decide for yourself to pick yourself up. God will meet you more than halfway, but it takes a lot of effort from the addict to make that change.

So why the tears of repentance in my car this morning? Because I have been grumbling. I have been feeling dissatisfied with my life lately. Please don’t get me wrong, I love my wife and I love my kids, but sometimes, well often, life gets monotonous and everyday starts to feel like the last. And I have started grumbling. Then through this song this morning God gave me a wake up call and reminded me where I was 12 years ago. I was alone, didn’t have anybody to love, didn’t have anybody who loved me. My only comfort was the bottle, and the mind numbing drone of the television. I had nothing to live for, nothing to do, but now I have everything to live for and too much to do.

Don’t get me wrong, life is hard. Life will always be hard, no matter what lot in life you are given. Maybe the routine of looking for that fix or high everyday is replaced by having to walk into the same office everyday and putting in 9 hours. Maybe having absolutely nothing to do and being bored out of your mind is replaced with constantly having to change diapers, giving baths, and washing clothes and dishes, and having no free time to yourself. Maybe you wake up every morning and as you are driving to work you feel like today feels exactly like the day before.

Maybe you need to take a moment. Stop and think about your journey. Don’t remember fondly of the endless pots of meat that weren’t there. Remember that you were a slave, chained, shackled. Remember the pain so deep. Remember what God brought you out of and don’t commit the most heinous sin of forgetting where you came from.