Rant/God’s Grace

I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately, I just seem to be losing control all around me. This anger, this just pure, saliva-in-the-back-of-your-throat rage, just wells up in me like a zombie rising from the grave. I thought I’d put it to bed years and years ago, and the last, (what 10-15 years?) have been fine. More than fine in all actuality. I’ve had fun. I’ve laughed. I’ve enjoyed things and people and activities immensely.
Yet at the back of my being, its been carried with me all along, like my shadow, my dark self is there. Quick to dampen spirits and spit on parades, or happy people, my shadow has the strongest desires to fight and destroy and hate and utterly rend anything or anyone that gets in my way. I want — it wants — to feel bone and flesh and sinew break and grind and pop beneath my fists until it stops moving, until it’s mush.
Meanwhile, I turn a blind eye to this behavioral defect that crops up anytime I get cut off in traffic, or get mistreated by some asshole customer. The latter has become more and more frequent as of late. Then the eye starts twitching and maybe they back down because part of them sees it.
Maybe I need to get back into my martial arts training and meditation. Scratch that, I know that I definitely do, but I just haven’t and it kills me. I should do that though. I’ll do it right away. I’ll find a school, hopefully a good one nearby and I’ll start training again. Oh, wait. I won’t because my job leaves me no convenient free time and because it also only provides me with this pitiful little paycheck that still won’t afford me the ability to pay for a martial arts school or anything else fun, let alone for my own car insurance and cell phone bills.
God, you useless little puke. You’re such a fucking drain on your family.
Never mind that voice. That’s the enemy. I will make you into a strong man, just follow after My heart.
How do I put this in a way you will understand? I know the voice of my Shepherd and the voice of a stranger I will not follow. That first voice, that was the stranger. He’s always saying shit like that. I was giving in and listening to him at first, (i.e. a minute ago), throwing my little pity-party for myself, but my Father, the Good Shepherd, He knows how to pull me out of it. He gives me just what I need, tells me what I need to hear. I’m just glad, thankful, that I’ve listened to Him. Okay, Let me clarify.
I can hear the voice of God.
I hope that doesn’t freak you out. But if it does, this really will; so can you. Yeah, really. Let’s break it down. You ever have one of those moments — say when you come up on an intersection and something tells you, literally there’s a small still voice in the back of your mind that says, “don’t go that way” or maybe it says “take the next exit and circle around McCullough Rd instead” or maybe it’s even nothing more than a feeling, but it’s there? But of course, you’re a man or woman of the 21st century and you don’t listen to a little voice in your head, you pretend there is no voice, because if you listen to it, it makes it real and if you listen to a voice in your head that sounds real, or even just a gut feeling, then maybe you need to drive to the psychiatrist’s office instead, so you brush it off and take your turn as you originally planned on, and as soon as you come around the bend, boom! There’s a massive car wreck right there — OR — Boom! You get in a massive car wreck.
Later, when you’re in a better mood after your day’s been ruined you stop and reflect and tell the story to your family and friends and you claim near ESP or psychic tendencies, because after-all, you knew! Just knew there was a wreck there. You just knew not to take San Pedro! Something just told you to take McCullough instead and circle back around the back way.
Hate to break it to you. That was God, brother. You never had ESP.
God’s talking to everyone all the time. Don’t believe me? No, of course not. Just take a moment and google all the accounts of people whose lives were saved because of that still, small, yet very clear voice. Look at 9/11 alone. Look at all the people who listened to that voice, or if they were so numb that it was just a feeling, but they heeded it and their lives were spared and then they thought later, “whoah, I think that was God.” Then they became believers. Something that I’ve realized is that God speaks to everyone all the time. Believers and non-Believers alike are always talking about those near ESP moments and unfortunately even most Believers don’t know better. So, go ahead, before we get any further. Take your moment. It’s okay. I’ll wait.
Now, after you take your moment and find all the testimonies and come back here because you’re impressed, or just curious, just remember that it’s God. The one that hung the stars in the sky and put the sun and moon in place is talking to you. If that doesn’t make your head spin maybe there are bigger problems. Of course, who can hear Him? Apparently, as we’ve established, it’s not just Believers. Which tracks because the Bible doesn’t say that “All believers who have ears to hear,” no, it says “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 13:9).
Eh, just some food for thought.
Now, I’m sure many of you are still skeptical. It’s quite alright and I don’t blame you. I had my own experience this morning where I — looking back — know that it was God talking to me, telling me not to buy a certain oil filter for an oil change I needed to do on my truck, but I was in a hurry and I just pushed the thought aside and grabbed the oil filter, of course, because I was in a hurry and I didn’t have time to simply open the box up and check it first.
When I got home though and started the oil change, I got to the pivotal point in which you put the new oil filter in, I opened the box suddenly I saw, wait, that’s not the oil filter I need! Nope, somebody had switched my high mileage, synthetic, extra guard blah blah blah, let’s leave it at expensive and very specific oil filter for a little p.o.s. $1.50 oil filter that wasn’t even compatible with my truck. Of course, now I know what you’re thinking, “ha, that sucks, but the creator of the universe is worried about your oil change?” and not to sound conceded, but… yeah. That one little action, that one little decision I made at 8:00 this morning put my whole day in a nosedive that I wouldn’t pull up out of until a few minutes ago. Believe me, I was still pretty livid, pretty saliva-in-the-back-of-your-throat angry when I started writing this a little while ago. My whole day was basically ruined, had to call into work, had to deal with the fact that my eye was twitching literally all day long, on and off, I had to deal with this anger that wanted to destroy something for hours and I could feel my eye twitching and my neck bulging and my heart rate and my blood pressure sky-rocketing for hours. That’s no way to spend a day. And if I’d been able to go to work I may have — I don’t know — met Clint Eastwood or Hozier or something. Unlikely, but you never know.
It sounds stupid now, even to me, but it was one of those proverbial straws that broke this camel’s back. It shouldn’t have happened. I should have listened to the voice of my Lord and I should have known it was Him all along. It doesn’t even sound like that big of a deal, but I am, admittedly, a creature of habit and when my habits get messed up, just watch out. Ask my fiancée about the days here and there when I forgot to buy coffee and had to go the mornings and then the days without coffee altogether, because Starbucks is gross and I refuse, on principle, to buy it anymore. Yeah, not very Christian of me. (The anger, not the Starbucks).
So, where am I going with all this? I’ve been in a shitty situation for a long time now, financially speaking, for the last… let’s see I’ll be 26 in May, so the last… 25 years, 9 months and 2 days. But who’s counting, right? Just kidding. Is anyone else as tired of that joke as I am? Yeah, but I’m not tired of it nearly as much as I’m tired of the financial thing we were talking about. It’s hard never doing anything and going without for so long, brothers and sisters.
Sorry, I’m digressing again. Where I’m going with this is that it doesn’t matter the situation, it doesn’t matter the location, it doesn’t matter how trivial or how monumentally important. God is there with you and you just have to open up your ears to Him. Hear Him knocking, open the door and he’ll come in. And just like that, he’ll change something. Even if it’s just your attitude. I still have faith that my financial situation will turn around, will go from the dust and debris that it’s been and be replaced with the blessing of the Lord, a well spring of favor and grace, and I’ll lack for nothing. But until then,
God bless you.