Liberty Trumps Anger

” Slow to anger. Not easily offended. Pray for my enemies. Trust in the Lord. In the world, not of it. “

These are the liberty breathed truths I hold on to for dear life these days. Honestly.

When the Word tells us to “Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee” that includes people he is manifesting his nature through. It means, doing all the above in submission to and out of love for, God (and others). Pretty simple, right?

Well…

Not for me. Not if I’m honest. And if it’s one thing you can accuse me of and general consensus would agree, it’s that I’m honest.

Doing the Word of God, practicing it, is not easy some days. But I’ll tell you what’s harder and exhausting; being angry, caustic, afraid, offended and suspicious. It’s what I call ‘unnecessary’, but I have to tell you, when I see grown humans acting worse than animals with no lineage toppling history, it not only angers me, it just grieves me.

When I see that the over-arching agenda is to silence and occlude others, it makes me want to snatch a weave off of someone’s head (white, black or green). It pricks every single ounce of my flesh. But I know for certain at my core, what I’m feeling more than anything is fear and grief.

Fear that the liberties I enjoy as an American citizen are eroding right in front of my eyes. Grief that people I consider countrymen are so desperate for identity, they create their own, while suffocating others’.

I don’t have a long-winded, well researched op-ed to give you, I have simple words of what I believe most of you are feeling. I have a simple hope and light named Jesus that I am now exercising on this desperate, dark path and I’m here to call you to join me. To stand, speak & pray against the powers and principalities at war with my fellow countrymen and me.

We had a rule in my marriage, only one of us could be crazy at a time. Needless to say, for roughly 12 days of the month, it was my turn;)

Well ladies and gentlemen, while we are calling upon our LAW enforcers to stand against anarchy and our mayors and other elected officials to honor liberty, it is incumbent upon us as believing conservatives to actively pray for the recovery and restoration of the current ‘crazies’. Only one of us can be crazy at a time. 

Having lived through a season of life where it appeared my social security provision was drying up and subsequently, becoming afraid, jealous, angry aka crazy.. I can understand the left’s plight to sustain their co-dependence on poverty as long as possible. That simply isn’t sustainable and since we have a President who is interested in getting people to a job line as opposed to food lines, we had to know this wasn’t going to go over well for people who only knew daddy as government.

Do you understand that? I mean, really understand that? We can ridicule, create memes, make fun, Tweet etc.. but our peace will come when we have knowledge about the why of the crazy and how to stand in sobriety and peace until the devil flees. If we will submit to our Father, and resist according to God’s standards, (integrity, truth, justice, sobriety, order, mercy) the devil WILL flee and our peace as a nation will be restored.

As the Church, we are good at reciting repentance scriptures, such as “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and return to me, I will restore them & heal their land‘, but what if that wasn’t for the homosexuals hell bent on unity bathrooms? What if that wasn’t just for the fornicators and drunks of the Church? What if it’s the simple act of submitting to God’s ways of dealing with anarchy, resisting our temptation to join the fray while actively standing and speaking for liberty and peacefully yet victoriously, watch the devil flee? Hm. Maybe.

As a thought leader, I can’t afford to get caught in the fowler’s net of offense and live there. I’m not immune, but I am exercising my choice and want to encourage you to do the same. We are all called to be thought leaders. The question is, what’s leading yours? Who gets the final “amen” in your head?

If offense/anger has erected a monument in your heart, tear it down. YOUR life matters. In the words of the song I loathe, let it go. It is possible to stand without anger or resentment.

Short story: Making my way through a ‘ghetto Kroger‘ I found myself getting more and more offended. I knew upon my decision to stop there,  it would not have all the organic items I desired, but it was closer to my destination. Grumbling my way through the produce isle, I saw the produce manager humming his way through the isles with his trusty clipboard, saying good morning to all in his path. Had my sneers and jeers been audible, he may have had me removed. Ha. I was so peeved!

Immediately, I feel this gentle nudge and hear a soft voice saying, ” You can be offended or you can communicate your frustrations and ask if he can meet your need” UGH! That means I have to be vulnerable AND nice! No Way Lord! Forget it.

Well, I mumbled my way through three circles of searching for organic lettuce and finally said screw it, I’ll take the one I don’t want. But God won out and I stopped and quasi kindly asked the manager if he may ever be able to offer a better organic selection. He was very kind and helpful and said what I already knew, ghetto Kroger doesn’t offer the same quantity as not ghetto Kroger. ( my words) Makes sense. Why stock your shelves with healthy items when people on WIC will only choose welfare blocks of cheese and junky food (been broke, I get it).

His kindness and compassion for my frustration, won me over. We made our peace and I rolled my happy cart away and wouldn’t you know it, I looked up just one more time in the organic section and saw loose organic lettuce.

See, my offended eyes could not see what was right in front of me. What I wanted wasn’t packaged the same, it didn’t look like what I thought it should. My imagination completely shut down and vision blurred by anger and resentment that I couldn’t find what I came for.

Offense is the cataracts of our spiritual vision. It blinds us to whom and what is right in front of us to help meet our needs, restore our trust and hope and affirm our needs are valid. It took humility for me to stop and ask in the midst of nurturing my offended attitude. As soon as I submitted to the Lord’s ways (communication) I was able to resist the devil I was dealing with, called offense, and he fled.

This same freedom is available to us in this national storm. They can’t topple that. It can only be surrendered. (NEVER surrender)

There is a better way.

xo,