The fundamental issue is who you are.
On this blog, I strive to set the example. Not that you should follow me, but I want you to emulate how I follow Christ. The whole business of manifesting the Kingdom of Heaven has nothing to do with you changing your world. Indeed, that notion is a blasphemous rejection of God’s sovereign authority. The whole of the gospel message is you engaging divine power to change yourself. It’s internal, not external. That’s more than any of us can do in the first place. It’s not a goal; you can never get there in this life. It’s a place to explore for as long as you live, knowing you’ll never discover the whole thing.
Knowing yourself truly is the same as knowing all you can about God’s revelation.
Do you get tired of hearing from me how bad Western Civilization is? Then stop reading this blog. The message of departing from Western conceptions of reality is fundamental to who I am; it’s a function of God’s work in my life. In order to draw closer to my Savior, I had to identify my native Western culture is completely and hopelessly perverted. It can’t be repaired because the foundation is sand. I write things like that because that’s what brings me peace with God. Find your own peace with God, but realize that as long as you discern Western Civilization differently, fellowship between us will be very difficult.
It’s never a question of who is right and wrong; that’s part of Western lie. It’s a total delusion to imagine that we can appeal to some objective truth. If it were always a matter of who scores the most points, professional sports would financially collapse tomorrow. Team loyalty is what keeps that entertainment industry alive. People are not loyal based on always winning. They celebrate when their team wins, and even more when their team takes the trophy for that season. But they are loyal for reasons of affinity. Each individual might offer a different version for the why of that affinity, but it boils down to what they see as their identity as a human.
So if I tell you that I supported OSU in the Bedlam Game last night against OU, it hardly matters that OSU lost. It’s just a freaking game. My loyalty is highly limited in the first place, but if you ask me why I choose one over the other, it’s mostly a matter of a lifetime of personal encounters with folks connected to each university. In the balance of things, my experience with OU has been less pleasant than my experience with OSU. I don’t need any other reason.
So it is with our associations within the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s not a question of who is right or wrong, good or bad, or any of the crap most Western Christians cite. The real issue is mutual tolerance. Indeed, it’s much the same with any human institution, including marriage. The fundamental question is whether you can live with each other in the best and worst that life has to offer. Up to the point when I met my wife, it wasn’t a question of whether my previous romances were less qualified. Those romances failed because there wasn’t sufficient convergence of individual natures to build something permanent. Veloyce is the “best” in the sense that she’s the best fit to handle my collection of failures. The longer she puts up with me, the more I love her; I can trust her in everything. It’s only a difference in degree with how we choose our friends and fellowships in Christ.
This is why I teach that your sense of humor is a critical element. If you have to restrain yourself in certain company, then you don’t really belong there. There may be a host of reasons why you can’t simply walk away — that’s the way it is with human society. But if you can’t openly share what makes you laugh, you need different friends. You need time with people who can appreciate your sense of humor or it will eventually kill you (in one sense or another). At a minimum, it makes for serious neuroses. Granted, a problem in this area may require a fresh introspection for something like why you have an impulse to hurt people who love you, but that’s another matter. In the balance of things, you need to keep company more with those who can appreciate your real self. Humor reflects who you are and where you are at this point in your life.
This should deflate the pompous popular notion that you must conform to the values of your society. You most certainly must not do that. Nobody but Christ has a claim on you at that level, no human can stand between you and your God. If you feel out of place, you probably are. Spend some time in prayer alone with God to begin sorting out who you are, but always walk in the best understanding that you have right now. You cannot move forward and develop a better grasp on any demand of the gospel until you taste how it touches your soul. Indeed, how you go about changing is itself a matter of individual character, but you can scarcely use God’s power to renovate your false understanding until you have tasted some measure of things that will harm you, however it is you taste them.
People who can’t tolerate your real self, and who make too many demands that you conform to their tastes are not your friends.
