Divine Exploitation

We exploit tribulation.

Does anyone have to tell you that our current situation, at least here in the West, constitutes the condition the Bible calls “tribulation”? Not merely a social discomfort, but we are in the beginning of a global assault on the human terrain. This sort of thing comes in waves. You can’t just pin it down to any one thread of decision and evil plot; it’s far more complex than that. By the time I could write a book just outlining the little that I know or suspect, the situation would have shifted too much to make it meaningful. We are in a state of flux and it will bring more suffering.

In order to make the most of Our Father’s glory, we have to take counsel together. I’m not the sole expert by any means. Some of you see things more clearly and with better understanding than I. What I do see I am obliged to declare as my divine calling. Let’s share what we see and encourage each other to make His character obvious.

That’s the starting point: His divine character. Indeed, it’s the whole point — we are called to participate in revelation by acting out that revelation in our individual contexts. It requires we first have our hearts leading our consciousness, giving our brains the orders to organize and implement the moral imperatives God pours into our hearts. The Bible often characterizes this as living by the Law, or walking the Spirit of Christ (He was the Law in human form), a moral consciousness that places demands on the flesh — “flesh” includes the intellect. The flesh will fail, but God measures the intent of your heart to obey as holiness. He discounts the failures of the flesh; to the degree we succeed at implementing what the heart demands, we reckon it as His miracle gift to us.

The paradoxical truth is that when things are easy is when we are most likely to fail. When tribulation comes, it empowers us in ways we hardly comprehend. That’s because tribulation is merely the shadow of His visitation. When His divine Presence draws near, it is the commitment of the heart that determines whether you feel His wrath or His sweet blessing. It’s all the same thing from His perspective; the difference is in us. His Presence destroys sin, so the question is how deeply wedded we are to sin, and in what ways.

I don’t pretend to know if this is His final visitation before utterly destroying what we call Western Civilization. I suspect it is, but He may not be finished demonstrating His power anytime soon. Whether it represents an end of all things in this plane of existence is a silly question. Don’t ask and quit thinking about it that way. It offers no avenue to approaching His glory; it hinders our service in divine justice.

Today — every moment of every day — is the time to reassess and make sure we have let go of things that He says don’t matter on the moral plane. As with all Creation, use what you have for His glory and let Him worry about whether you should attach any further value to it. If He says it’s important for your mission, then hang onto it for His glory’s sake. Otherwise, treat as consumable, expendable. By all means, ditch the instinctive valuations our society teaches us, because precious little of that system coincides with the revelation of God’s truth. Even that little is by accident, so it’s best to assume they get nothing right, but might have something briefly useful in some limited contexts.

Your heart already understands all of this, but it is the intellect that stands in desperate need of training. Your heart sees through the veil of fleshly perception and desire; your heart already makes perfect sense of the moral fabric woven into all of life here. The true moral perception is there, so learn to let it rule.

As John the Baptist said in his own day, “The ax is laid at the root of the tree.” His cousin Jesus took up that message, and while it took a few more years for the meaning to become obvious, the actual historical end of that metaphorical tree took another few decades. I can’t explain why, but I believe our situation will move much faster than that. I doubt it will take very many strokes of the ax to fell this rotting mess.

So your pastor today says you shouldn’t fret, but keep your eyes open for an opportunity to highlight His glory in ways you otherwise could not.