An Infancy of Exhaustion

I couldn’t decide whether to share this clumsy cathartic letter, but this situation has grown my empathy toward sufferers of sleep apnea. Perhaps it will help someone else. If my boy is bothered by this later in life, I’ll find a way to make it up to him.

Hey bud. So, we found out a couple of years into your life that you’ve had pretty serious obstructive sleep apnea since birth. You had very swollen adenoids and enlarged tonsils. The adenoids restricted your nasal airway and the tonsils interfered with mouth breathing. What this meant for you is that it was really difficult to fall asleep when you were tired; when you did fall asleep, your body frequently woke you up in the middle of your sleep cycles to prevent suffocation; and when you were sleeping in one of your contracted sleep cycles, you weren’t getting enough oxygen. This chronic lack of sleep, deep sleep, and air, especially compounded over time, had a profound effect on your life.

I’m really sorry for all you’ve been through for your first 2 years of life. I’m so sorry no one understood for so long and it took so long for your problem to be fixed. I’m sorry for the many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times, you woke up crying in the middle of the night because your body was releasing adrenaline to panic you enough to wake up so you didn’t suffocate to death. I’m sorry for all those times you tried to tell us there was a problem and no one really understood so no one was there for you the way you needed. That must have been lonely, scary, and confusing.

I’m sorry for all the things we never did because you were still sleeping or were so tired we stayed home. I’m sorry for all the time you spent trying to fall asleep instead of playing or sleeping because it’s just really hard to fall asleep when you can’t breathe right. I’m sorry for all the free time you lost because so much of your time was spent trying, and unable, to get the sleep you needed. I’m sorry for all the times you woke up sad and slow, needing to exhaustedly ease into the day, instead of waking up happy, energetic, and excited to be awake in the world.

I’m sorry for all the times you would have laughed, but only had the energy to smile. For the times you would have smiled, but were expressionless. I’m sorry for the moments you would have run, but only walked; walked, but only stood; stood, but only sat. I’m sorry for all the times you would have had the energy to engage the world, but could only observe it. Or would have observed, but merely existed within it, awake. I’m sorry for the times you would have conversed, but only listened. Or listened, but didn’t understand.

I’m sorry for the times you felt really frustrated and couldn’t regulate your emotions because of exhaustion. I’m sorry for all the emotions which were muted in your years of sleep deprivation. I’m sorry for when you would have felt joy, or sorrow, or love, or anger, or bewilderment, or frustration, or excitement, but you didn’t feel much of anything.

I’m sorry for the things you were unable to do physically because you were just a little too short, a little too weak, or a little too uncoordinated because your body wasn’t growing at the rate it was supposed to. I’m sorry for all the skills, words, concepts, and other things you learned but couldn’t retain because you couldn’t concentrate enough to practice, or your brain was too tired, or your sleep lacked the oxygen and depth to make those connections. I’m sorry for all the things you did retain for a while, but constant deprivation ate away at them and they were lost again. I’m sorry for the way the inability to retain some of these little things day to day kept you from acquiring a foundation on which to build your skills, knowledge, and communication. I’m sorry for all the things you would have been able to do, but couldn’t because your body put so many of its exceptionally limited resources toward keeping you alive when you slept instead of toward growing your body and brain.

I’m sure there are many things you missed out on that were too subtle to notice or beyond my ability to make an educated guess at. I’m really sorry for those things too. I’m sorry for all the thoughts you didn’t think, things you never felt, words you didn’t say, interactions you never had, activities you never did, time you lost, and the growth which didn’t occur due to your sleep apnea.

I know you’ll never really experience this loss because of when it happened. You won’t remember any of it, though in some way it will always stick with you. I want you to know even though you’re not aware of your loss, it still matters. It’s still a tragedy. It did not go unnoticed, unremembered, unmarked, unfelt, or unmourned.

A Personal Reflection On My Relationship With John McCain

The earliest I remember being aware of John McCain was the 2008 election cycle. I was a good republican then, despite years of being relatively apolitical after high school. I recall thinking most republicans voted for him in the primary, so he’s probably the guy I would’ve voted for in the primaries as well. I didn’t know much about him, but he seemed to be a typical republican choice for president so I supported him.

In 2007, the housing market fell dramatically. In 2008, the whole economy crashed. The housing bubble, which began as soon as the tech bubble ended, popped. This event initiated a massive drop in the stock market and a very long recession. I realized how devastating this was on many people and this realization sparked my curiosity. I became very curious and began asking questions about what would cause such an event. This inquiry overcame my apoliticism and led me to an ever increasing interest in and awareness of politics.

It was at this point that my knowledge of McCain grew. I started listening to talk radio. I read political news articles. I learned about the candidates’ platforms. I watched the debates, interviews, appearances on other television shows, and the like. As I watched and learned, while I disagreed with a few of his positions, I really liked the man, John McCain.

I could rewatch some of these things to recall them more clearly, but I feel like it’s more fitting for this particular post to rely on my memory of television events from a decade ago rather than watch them again and have brand new thoughts about them.

I only recall a few specifics from the debates, but I do recall feeling like both candidates came across as very presidential during them. McCain got heated at times, but he was generally respectful to Obama, especially afterward. He had sensible answers to most of the questions. He stood his ground. And most of the time he was able to disagree and argue with a smile, a joke, a smirk, and a pleasant dignity. He often came across this way on television appearances.

One of the things I remember most is his appearance on Saturday Night Live. He was jovial. He was genuinely funny. He was self-deprecating. He always had some sort of smile on his face, even when it was just a smirk. There was a peaceful lightness about him even in a potentially hostile environment. John McCain’s personality, even if someone disagreed with him vehemently politically, was difficult to dislike. Thus, given that I mostly agreed with him politically, I liked him very much.

I wasn’t very happy about McCain supporting the bank bailouts, but I still voted for him in 2008 with pride, despite knowing he didn’t have a shot at getting elected. McCain lost of course. His concession speech, to my memory, was quite good and complimentary despite the divisive campaigns. McCain remained in the spotlight to varying degrees until his recent death.

My awareness of politics and the continuous process of educating myself about government meant that I’ve paid attention to him over the last 10 years. As I paid attention, learned, and grew in love, my opinion of John McCain began to shift.

When I voted for him in 2008, I was still all about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Yeah, they went on a little longer than they should have. No, they still hadn’t found the WMDs in Iraq, but they were well hidden in the tunnel systems. Yes, a lot of innocent civilians were killed and displaced. Yes, the various regions were seriously destabilized and dangerous for minority groups during these wars. But these problems would be improved overall once the US won them completely.

And “we” had to go into Afghanistan because the Taliban = Al Qaeda. These crazy terrorists just wanted to see death and destruction rain down on the US because “we” were christians, we were wealthy, and we had freedom. They hated us for these reasons and would stop at nothing to get rid of us. And we had to go into Iraq because of WMDs, democracy, something about the Kurds, Saddam was crazy, and Iraq probably helped Al Qaeda with 911 too… right?

When I learned more about politics, these justifications did not withstand reason and evidence. It turns out history didn’t begin on 911. The terrorists weren’t merely insane muslim demon spawn who hated the good things about the US. They actually had some legitimate gripes and were rational actors willing to sacrifice themselves in the pursuit of specific political ends (this should go without saying, but I know for some it still doesn’t: This doesn’t make their actions any less despicable). The Taliban offered Osama to the US. Saddam actually did destroy the WMDs which the US helped him acquire in the first place. The wars were actually bringing instability to the region and destroying the lives of the average citizen, not helping them. I must stop this list here or else I will end up writing the longest paragraph in the history of mankind.

In this significant area, I had now departed from McCain. Where I once praised his position, I now criticized it. He was no longer a champion of justice to me, but a champion of aggressive wars against nations which had never attacked the US. He was a central cheerleader, promoter, and deceiver for government activities which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, a few thousand US soldiers, and left many other people displace, wounded, maimed, full of PTSD, internal emotional confusion, and led to many suicides. These were not the actions of a hero or an honorable man.

It would be one thing if he learned from his experience with Afghanistan and Iraq (lessons he could have learned from Vietnam many decades earlier), repented, and changed. This would have been respectable. He didn’t. He said the US should be in Iraq for 100 years if that’s what it took. He supported further action all over the world. He was a reliable promoter of every one of Obama’s wars. He regularly propagated the lies and half-truths used to sell the wars to the American people. He supported the arming of jihadis and bombings of Libya, which now has a burgeoning slave trade, and Syria. Both places where the strongest fighting groups in their civil wars were either Al Qaeda, ISIS, or groups which swore loyalty to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the butcher of New York. He backed the Ukrainian revolt which included a bunch of neo-nazis. He supported the U.S.’s role in the Saudi’s commission of war crimes in yemen, which has resulted in mass starvation and the world’s worst cholera outbreak. These are the actions of a villain.

Since I’ve been more aware of the political realm, I also saw many of McCain’s lies, flip flops, misrepresenting of himself, and foundationless accusations of his fellow politicians. Granted, he is not exceptionally bad in this area, as this kind of behavior is so common among politicians it is hardly worth noting. But it is still not justified. It is still unethical. It still shows a lack of integrity and hunger for power over others. Just because other people like him also engage in it, his deceptions aren’t any less reprehensible.

Like most republican senators, his voting record is abysmal. He’s as pro big government and anti-freedom as they come. He has zero qualms with voting for bills which give government powers which are obviously not enumerated in the constitution and trample human rights. He mostly only ever opposed such bills for political purposes when they were proposed by the democrats and voted for them when they fit the republican party line.

In the last decade, I’ve learned more history than I ever thought I would know. I never studied the history of John McCain in particular, but he shows up quite a few times. I learned about things like: the Keating Five, the mass murder of civilians in Vietnam by bombing targets like a light bulb factory, McCain’s attempt to shut down those who sought to free the POWs left in Vietnam and protect government bureaucrats, reasons to question his integrity as a POW and pilot, a long history of entitlement and a hot temper, his support of war crimes in Iraq which targeted water supply systems and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children, cheating on his wife and his subsequent divorce, and his persistent support of the Saudis despite their atrocious human rights record and financial support of Al-Qaeda, including the handlers of the 911 hijackers.

In all of these things, despite infrequent angry outbursts, John McCain was the same man I watched on Saturday Night Live. He is charming. He looks happy. He’s always smiling and periodically has something witty to say. He is friendly, often even to political opponents. Personal stories abound of very pleasant interactions with the man. He is congenial, likeable, and appears to be both respectful and respectable.  

John McCain embodies the pretense of civility which defines the State. With one hand, he kills, promotes death, destruction, disorder. With the other, he presents an amiable personality, professionalism, compassion, and honor. The State is an organization which exists through aggressive violence on peaceful people to benefit the ruling class all while pretending it exists to help those same people and keep them safe. No wonder McCain spent his whole life serving Leviathan.

John McCain is a friend to many and a hero. He is a friend of wars, deception, spying, political corruption, and tyranny. He is a hero of aggressive violence. But he is an enemy of human rights, freedom, and peace. A monster to humanity.

Who Are The “sons of the gods” in Genesis 6?

One of the questions which cannot be definitively answered by even most well-educated scholars is, who are the “sons of God” (or more accurately in the Hebrew, the “sons of the gods”) in Genesis 6.2? Ultimately, speculating about who these people are is in some ways an exercise in futility, as one can never know for sure. Still, I think an attempt to explain my perspective on which theory is most likely to be accurate will help illuminate some of the Scriptures and show a thematic thread which may not otherwise be as clear, even if ultimately I cannot be conclusive about the referent of the phrase, “sons of the gods.”

The confusing text, Genesis 6.1-4:

Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he is also flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

There are three main theories about who the sons of the gods are, all of which are, in my opinion, based on reasonable interpretations of the Scriptures.

The first is that the sons of God are men from the line of Seth, Adam and Eve’s faithful son. In this case the daughters of men are those who are from the line of Cain (or from a line not of Seth). The evil these sons of God committed was intermarrying with outsiders and polluting the bloodline.

The second theory is that the sons of the gods are angels, or some type of spiritual being, who left their place in heaven to have sex with and marry humans. The evil they committed was perverting the sexual order of creation and also polluting the human bloodline.

The third theory is that the sons of the gods are local rulers. The daughters of men then refers to the everyday women who have little power and thus are vulnerable to the will of these rulers. The evil being committed by these rulers is the use of power to make wives of whichever vulnerable women they desire.

I believe this third theory accords with historical evidence, best accounts for the textual data, and most seamlessly fits within the surrounding narrative. Other authors have done a far better job than I could explaining how this view fits very well with Hebrew language, historical documents outside of scriptures, and ancient understandings of the passage, so my primary focus will be on the narrative context. These are the reasons I believe this view to be the most likely:

1. Local gods have always been closely associated with local rulers.
2. The sons of the gods act out one of the explicit consequences of sin entering the world in Genesis 3.
3. The sons of the gods are an example of evil’s progress since the first sin.
4. This brief story immediately precedes the flood narrative and forms a part of the explanation of why God sent the flood.
5. The rulers discussed in the stories of Abraham and Isaac are like the sons of the gods.
6. The sin of the sons of the gods is committed again by future rulers of Israel.

Historically it is common to apply divine terms to local rulers. Even in recent European history, there was a close connection between God and monarchs. Their power and right to rule was declared divine. This god-ruler association was far more close and common thousands of years ago. Rulers were sometimes even considered gods themselves.

More often it was easier to explain their power and right to rule by claiming descendance from gods. These regional despots are then referenced individually as a “son of [insert name of one of the regional gods here].” It is plausible the author of Genesis used the term “sons of the gods” to refer to this group of rulers more generally. Within the context of this passage, it is a natural interpretation to assume these sons of God are humans who have godlike power.

If this is the case, then the text is contrasting the terms “sons of god” and “daughters of man.” The author is deliberately displaying the power differential between these two groups to highlight the relative powerlessness of the daughters of man. The sons of god are using their superior power over others to take as many wives as they want and whomever they want and no one can stop them. The women then, along with their fathers and husbands, are victims of the the local rulers.

These actions can be viewed as a playing out of the consequences of sin entering the world. One of the consequences for Woman was that “[her] desire will be for [her] husband and he will rule over [her]” (Gen 3.16). In the world of the text, women were often treated as property of their fathers. Marriage was a transference of ownership from the fathers to the husbands. Even in many of the most peaceful cases, marriage was an act of the husband ruling over his wife. In the case of the powerful local rulers who take whichever women they want (implying the women have no choice in the matter), marriages are even less voluntary. If we look at the evil characters in Genesis who precede the sons of God, this textual link becomes more solidified.

God warned Adam and Eve that their sin would bring death and this is tragically fulfilled when one of their sons kills the other. In Genesis 4, Cain kills his brother Abel in a rivalrous, jealous rage. Sin in the world brings death to humanity. After Cain sins and kills his brother, Cain, like his parents, was exiled. In his exile, Cain builds a city. He acquires a small local region to be the domain over which he reigns.

Lamech is one of Cain’s descendants who demonstrates that he shares some of Cain’s personality traits. One notable act of Lamech is that he took two wives. To them he said,

“Adah and Zillah,
Listen to my voice,
You wives of Lamech,
Give heed to my speech,
For I have killed a man for wounding me;
And a boy for striking me;
²⁴ If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” (Gen 4.23-24)

In his brief recorded speech, Lamech reveals his likeness to his ancestor Cain. He is not only similar to Cain in that he is violent and has no qualms about murdering even young boys, but describes himself as a far more vengeful version. The person of Lamech is the text’s demonstration that sin, and thus death, is growing and spreading across the earth. The effects of Adam and Eve’s first sin continue to progress. This story shows two characteristics of evil getting worse in the world. People are becoming more violent and are taking more wives.

Many generations after Lamech, the reader discovers this evil has progressed even further. The sons of the gods, like the violent men who came before them, are committing ever more violence and taking ever more women to be their wives. These men are an advanced version of Cain and Lamech. They are the growth of evil over time.

It is this growth of violence which causes God to regret making man and to send the flood. Immediately after the story of the sons of the gods, the author says,
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in his heart (Genesis 6.5-6).

It is highly probable God’s analysis of the greatness of man’s wickedness is directly related to the immediately preceding verses about the sons of the gods, as well as the preceding stories in Genesis about the other evil men (Cain and Lamech). The author isn’t jumping one subject to another, from the sons of the gods to the flood, but telling a related and progressive narrative.

We can be confident that violence is the central wickedness God has in mind because it is the only wickedness mentioned explicitly as the reason behind the flood.

Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. (Gen 6.11)

Things were so violent on the earth, humans were so destructive to one another, God decided to hit the reset button on the world. Reading the text as a cohesive narrative leads one to conclude that the story which precedes the flood is directly related to the flood. The sons of the gods are an example of the type of overwhelming violence God saw on the earth.

Immediately after the flood, sin re-entered the world through Noah and his sons. A couple chapters later, we find many powerful rulers have arisen. When we look at the assumptions of Abraham and his son Isaac, we see that these rulers are quite similar to Lamech and the sons of the gods which came before them. They also are known for taking many women, whomever they choose, to be their wives.

There are three stories which exemplify these assumptions of the main characters of the text: Abraham and Pharaoh in Genesis 12.10-20, Abraham and Abimelech in Genesis 20.1-18, and Isaac and Abimelech in Genesis 26.1-12. These stories are all different and have many other narrative purposes, but one thing they have in common are Abraham’s and Isaac’s assumptions that the local people with power will kill them and take their wives as their own.

In every story, the main characters lie to the local people with power, saying that their wives are their sisters in order to protect their own lives. Perhaps Abraham and Isaac are just paranoid individuals, but it is more likely their assumption they will be killed and their wives taken has a basis in reality. It is likely that it is common for the more powerful local rulers to take the beautiful women they want to be their wives and kill anyone who stands in the way. The results of sin progressing in the world before the flood parallel the results of sin progressing in the world after the flood.

When we read the story of the sons of the gods in Genesis 6 as being local rulers using superior force to take women as their wives, they become an archetype for future rulers throughout the Old Testament. The very sins for which God sent the flood are sins God warns about when discussing Israel’s future kings and the sins we find Israel’s kings committing.

In the book of Deuteronomy, God, through Moses, anticipates that Israel will put a king on the throne to be like the other nations. He then provides them some guidelines about what the king should be like and what the king should not be like. One of the things to avoid is found in Deuteronomy 17.17.

He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. 

The way the king’s heart being led astray was most likely to manifest is by worshiping the gods of his wives. This is probably the primary implication the author of Deuteronomy had in mind. However, in at least one notable example, a king’s pursuit of many wives led his heart astray in such a way that the king acted just like the local rulers in Genesis.

David is widely considered to be Israel’s best king. He is the king to whom all the other kings are compared. When they’re good, they walked in the ways of David. When they’re bad, they didn’t. Still, David sins a lot as king. His most infamous sin is sleeping with a woman and killing her husband.

2 Samuel 11.1-5

² One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful,³ and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” ⁴ Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. ⁵ The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

When one reads this passage side by side with Genesis 6, the parallels are striking. David, the local ruler, saw a daughter of man who was beautiful. So what does David do next? Well, the only natural thing for an overwhelmingly powerful ruler to do. He uses his power to sleep with the powerless Bathsheba. What choice does she really have in this situation? In this culture? Say no to the king? That’s barely a choice. He takes whomever he sees and desires.

Soon after this, David does exactly what Abraham feared Pharoah and Abimelech would do. Bathsheba’s husband Uriah was a loyal warrior in David’s army. So David, being crafty and wanting to maintain popularity with his people by hiding his murder, comes up with this plan:

¹⁴ In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. ¹⁵ In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die: (2 Samuel 11.14-15)

The plan works. Uriah dies fighting for his king who slept with his wife. David then marries Bathsheba. He is, in this moment, just like the sons of the gods. He commits the very sin of covetous violence for which God sent the flood. The sons of the gods become an archetype not just for future pagan rulers in Genesis, but also for the greatest king Israel ever had.

For these reasons I believe the theory that the sons of the gods were local rulers fits best with the biblical narrative. Combined with articles which analyze historical evidence in the ancient near east,* this theory is far more compelling than any of the others. But it might be wrong.

* One such article: Who were the sons of the gods?

 

A Personal Reflection On A Creative Project

A little over two years ago, on the day I turned 30 years old, I released the first episode of a podcast entitled, “Christian Anarchy.” It is essentially a podcast devoted to explaining to followers of Jesus that they should not support the violent treatment of peaceful people, alerting Jesus followers to the reality that all Nation-States exist through the violent treatment of peaceful people, and thus followers of Jesus should not support the existence of Nation-States. I was embarrassed to release my first episode.

I’m still a little embarrassed to bring it back up. I do not find the subject matter embarrassing and I’m more confident than ever in the essential message of the podcast. I was embarrassed because at the time, I was a well below average speaker. I knew the podcast would be full of flaws, yet I believed the truth of the ideas themselves would add enough value to listeners that many could overlook my lack of ability. In order to communicate the message in this format, I had to put my weakness in full view of others.

This project resulted in a lot of personal growth. I learned a lot about magic internet stuff and more than I knew existed about audio production. The extent of my previous knowledge of audio recording was: 1. Press record on cassette player. 2. Fart into mic. 3. Rewind. 4. Press play. 5. Giggle. Now I can record, edit, and mix audio and make it sound professional… like a really cheap professional who is bad at his job, but still.

Learning a few new concrete skills in my elderly condition was good for my aging brain. Moreso than this, I became better at things I’ve often thought I could not do. Creating a podcast episode every week was an essential element in working my way up to becoming a mediocre public communicator. I took debate class in high school to avoid speech. I sprinted through every verbal presentation in college. I’ve always avoided monologues. I never thought these forms of public speaking were a skillset I could have. With a lot of practice, and putting myself in vulnerable positions, I’m now a passably decent sermonizer and I crush best man speeches. It turns out you can become better at things you suck when you do it a lot.

Perhaps the most important skill I strengthened is consistent, self-motivated follow through. I have a tendency to be motivated by external factors. Yes, I’ll show up at the event I said I would show up at because others are directly involved. I’ll finish the homework I signed up to finish. I will do the tasks I need to in order to make money. I’ll do what I said I would because others are depending on me. Releasing a podcast every week is different. No one is depending on me, I won’t make money, I have no external obligations. I simply put the work in (sometimes it was a lot) to make it happen consistently because I desired to. My internal motivation was enough.

Despite the near unending list of criticisms I could level at this creative project, it’s by far the best thing I’ve ever produced. I don’t know of any ideas more important and less discussed in our world. Nothing I’ve done has had anywhere near the reach of the podcast. Never have I received so much gratitude and compliments than in email after email people sent me from all over the world in response.

The positive reaction of so many who listened to me talk for 35 hours was disarming. I had to put down the weapons I would normally use against myself because it would have been irrational to use them. Many negative things are true about the show. It suffers from my lack of monologuing ability. It is too dry. It’s too dense for the audio format at many points. The show is redundant in others. It’s boring. My jokes are idiotic. My understanding and knowledge is sometimes very shallow. These things are true, but I cannot use them to shame myself or convince myself I wasted my time. Too many people, too many individuals who are among the most reasonable, open minded, intellectually honest, and compassionate I know, were so happy and grateful I could not take up arms against myself.

One lesson I am in a frequent state of learning is that I should always live disarmed of my own judgment. I do not mean absent of honest self-evaluation, but absent a judgmental mindset which can so easily accompany such self-evaluation. There is little to be gained by self-shame. Nothing to be gained by shaming one’s own creative work. And there is great freedom in being able to create things without fear of what anyone will think about it, including oneself. Shamelessness also creates an inner peace which allows for the kind of honest self-perspective out of which self-improvement can flourish.

In case you are reading this and happen to be interested in glancing at the podcast I’ve been discussing, here: Christianarchy

 

Jeremiah 33: You Are Not Rejected

Most Christians I know have felt rejected by God at some point in their life. Some of them struggle with this feeling on a regular basis. This is especially true when they have some sin they keep repeating or believe they have committed a sin so big God cannot accept them again. As most of us have discovered at some point, sin has real negative consequences in our life, sometimes very grave consequences, and when we are facing this difficult repercussions, it feels like God is not there with us, and thus has rejected us. The people of God in Jeremiah 33 felt this too.

²³ The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ²⁴ “Have you not observed that these people are saying, ‘The Lord has rejected the two clans that he chose’? Thus they have despised my people so that they are no longer a nation in their sight. ²⁵ Thus says the Lord: If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth, ²⁶ then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.”

The people of Israel and Judah are in exile. They are no longer under their own kings, but are being ruled at home and abroad by the Babylonian empire. Their countries and their central cities have been destroyed. Their holy places are in ruins. And they know it is because of their sin, because they neglected justice and worshiped the gods of Babylon that YHWH allowed Babylon to destroy their nation. Naturally, in their present state of despair, they conclude God has rejected them.

YHWH has always allowed for freedom to sin. Such liberty is built into the structure of Creation. Sin, because it is a deviation from the good God’s design, has negative consequences. God allows for these negative consequences because He wants human choice to have power to impact the world positively. With this power also comes the ability to impact the world negatively. When these painful consequences occur, it is tempting to, like the exiles, believe God has rejected us.

As we see, this is not the case. God is not giving up on His people. He made promises a thousand years prior and hundreds of years prior which he is not abandoning. He is faithful even when the people who claim to follow Him are faithless. The end is not the present moment of suffering, the end is instead a full restoration provided not through the faithfulness of His people, but by his own mercy. He always has a plan for good.

For those who have seen Jesus in the Scriptures and met Him in our lives, how much more does this promise ring true! Jesus puts on display mercy and acceptance even of those who have rejected Him, even of those who killed Him, in a way so clear it cannot be mistaken. Jesus is the character of God in human flesh and in the gospels we see Him reaching out to the most rejected sinners on page after page. The message of God to His people is always, ultimately one of hope. He is always standing with open arms to all, even those who run from him, waiting for them to turn and fall into His unconditionally loving embrace.

Jeremiah 32: You Asked For This

At the beginning of Jeremiah 32, our prophet is locked in prison because he keeps telling besieged Jerusalem that they’re gonna lose. King Zedekiah is not a fan. Jeremiah’s response while locked up? He keeps saying things which would be quite troubling to the people in Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 32.26-35

²⁶ Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, ²⁷ “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?”²⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord, “Behold, I am about to give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will take it. ²⁹ The Chaldeans who are fighting against this city will enter and set this city on fire and burn it, with the houses where people have offered incense to Baal on their roofs and poured out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger. ³⁰ Indeed the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah have been doing only evil in My sight from their youth; for the sons of Israel have been only provoking Me to anger by the work of their hands,” declares the Lord. ³¹ “Indeed this city has been to Me a provocation of My anger and My wrath from the day that they built it, even to this day, so that it should be removed from before My face, ³² because of all the evil of the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah which they have done to provoke Me to anger—they, their kings, their leaders, their priests, their prophets, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ³³ They have turned their back to Me and not their face; though I taught them, teaching again and again, they would not listen and receive instruction. ³⁴ But they put their detestable things in the house which is called by My name, to defile it.³⁵ They built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of Ben-hinnom to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I had not commanded them nor had it entered My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

At the beginning of this passage, God says he is about to give Jerusalem into the hands of those attacking it. This is one of the main ways the Scriptures explain God’s punishment of people. He allows the choices of kings and armies to take effect and the result is the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people. God performs these judgments by allowing the natural results of human action to take effect in full force. He works with exercise of free will to accomplish his purposes, even when He purposes to express His wrath.

The text makes it clear why YHWH was angry and frustrated with His people. They were brazenly worshipping other gods. They worshipped these gods on their homes, they built altars and places of worship, and they sacrificed to other gods. They even sacrificed their own children to these other gods! Despite warning after warning from YHWH, they continued in these practices. They were not interested in being His people, they wanted to be the people of all the gods. YHWH doesn’t work this way. He wants people to follow Him alone or follow other gods. Not both.

In a sense, God’s withdrawal, which allowed the Chaldeans and Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to capture Jerusalem, was exactly what the Jews wanted. God warned them what the worship of these foreign gods would lead to, and they continued in their idolatry. They wanted to worship Baal. They wanted him to have power. And guess whose god Baal is? Baal is the god of Babylon.

They wanted these gods to have power, now they do! Congratulations people, you did it. In a narrative sense, YHWH is allowing these gods to exert their power, through Babylon, upon the nation of Israel. Israel is getting exactly what they asked for in a different way than they desired. Their city is now being destroyed by the gods they worshiped and many of them will be shipped to lands where these gods are even more honored. The idols of Israel will become their rulers and ruin their lives.