My Last Spiritual Box

I never measured up in the box, in fact the last box I was in was like a nice spirit filled form of legalism, and yes, God was welcomed within that context and yes people experienced touches and tender healing both within the heart and mind and bodies. 

We were all applauding the greatness of this God, looking up to the ceiling, practising our 'worship face', forcing ourselves to enter into a place where the voice of one is drowned by all the others.

We would sit, expectant, desperately happy, desperately 'filled with the spirit' desperately eager to be able to receive what ever was happening around us....

they asked me to leave my heart at the door, like tucking it secretly into a locker, because they assured me I wouldn't need it, and they would take care of it whilst I was worshipping. 

Then all those bright and shiny people would look into my eyes, speak more tender words than I've ever heard and then, turn and walk away

as if that was ok?

Is it ok to come inside someone then leave? 

One 'word' stands with Eleasah . one 'sermon' stands with Eleasah, another 'prayer' stand with Eleasah, of course! 

When I received Jesus into my heart, He started throwing open the door for wayfarers; in fact every now and then, he'd stumble in carrying a wounded broken man from a road side, saying, 'Eleasah take care of them, When I come back, I'll give you back any extra you have spent.....' 

no, I never knew what I was doing, and no, what I did and was, didn't matter, no one noticed, cause they all had their eyes on the ceiling, busy believing for some great last move of God and yet, Jesus laid down in the storm and slept – perhaps the storm of obvious traps and lies and manipulation will cause us to tun to him, perhaps we'll say in desperation? Don't you care?

We' are perishing here! Perhaps we just made him tired. 

I like the story of Jesus asleep in the boat, like an oblivious baby, I don't have any principle to pull out of that story, in fact it would kill it for me, that story is just simply odd and simply fascinating and I like to see him in my mind, at the bottom of the boat, maybe drooling maybe snoring, maybe walking the garden of God....

I also like the translation of what he said to the storm – he said, be mussled barking dog -shut up!

The sea didn't need Tabasco sauce in its mouth, it just did what it was told, I wonder how it became so obedient or perhaps it just knew the voice of authority...it amuses me to think that Jesus silenced the storm as if it were a person – personally he said, shut up! 

I say shut up a lot, to my own mind and heart, but I'm doubtful he would address me this way.... 

when I was in the pew, then up and about, dancing in the worship, when I first was able to raise my hands and wave them after 5 years of just showing the roof my palms, when I first stood behind a pulpit and smiled like a child at the crowd – first thing out of me, was honest sarcasm, I said, “I'm not standing in front of a bunch of people, I'm not about to say something deep!” And so I slowly relaxed and they looked at me like I was hot buttered popcorn 

But I don't even know what I said...I cant remember,

I think I was about 4 years old in my heart, yet standing as a woman and mother of two,

the paradigm God had to speak through. 

I remember people handing around mints, sitting on floors, yelling out spirit sighs and groans, lolling all over the place and I remember times of peace and inevitably someone's face looking into mine, saying are you ok???? I was you know, just my peace somehow seemed odd in this place...it was noticed like a big red nose. 

I remember sneaking into the prayer room before the service, where people were warming

up the air with the friction of their fervour;

I remember it was noisy and that I wanted to sing 'bind us together lord'

we were spaghetti spirituals,

pumping our fists, lolling onto each other,

no ones eyes connecting just in case this was really odd! 

I remember the pastor who doesn't really like people, pushing her way in and laughing and laughing as 'God' touched her and filled her and anointed her for TONIGHT!! tonight was gonna be so good!!!

I remember I could never ask her a normal question, she was scared of that, and yet, I came out of the blue, I had no agenda, and she was obviously trying to maintain control of herself via spiritual declarations and strange bodily contortions – but when she sang or spoke, God, limited by our own little created box, would stare at me through her and I would see him and every once in a while he'd speak so loud through her and I knew that though she was so 'big and bright and shiny' God loved her like a baby

I remember squatting out the back with my sister as she started to spew out how sick of all the yelling, declaring, dancing, parading and wobbly weirdness she was, its not like she didn't 'do that' at times but there was now the necessity, a necessity of noise, clamour and unified crazy high places – the visions were so grand, huge and epic and captured all our minds, but the message of the visions was always so simple and little, so tender and personal, we never bothered, to find the message, we just got excited about the vision. 

I remember wondering about this mighty move of God and then God started to talk to me, from the back of the building, you see he knew I wasn't doing anything at that moment so he thought He'd strike up a conversation. Now while I was hoping for a 'personal spiritual weather forecast' from the great weather guy in the sky, he showed me a very large lounge room, and told me, I'm just wanting you guys to relax in the lounge together, come together and become comfortable with each other, relaxed, accepting, simple and loving, until you guys can come and just share yourselves in the lounge room of my heart, my power and what I want to do, is limited and fragmented. But you guys get all so excited about the little bling of my presence and you don't really believe me when I said, that everything has been given to you – for one another – everything, for each other. 

Thought then I should say something, you know, make a moment, walk up the front, put that shiny face on, and teeter a little bit cause they liked the teeter totter anointing...

but I realised again,, the message was so tiny, and no one wanted the simple and the tiny, they wanted ethereal wonders, 'aurora Borealis God', one who we could gape and gasp at, but not one that talks and interacts simply. Its too dull, no one wants Him like that! 

You know, I almost gave everything to the box, I almost started to believe that oiling the machinery daily by praise, promise and pledges was what God wanted to express himself through, but by the time gems started appearing in odd places and babies were being born covered in gold dust,

I had really had enough.

And it wasn't a new thing, it was what God had told me all along and now what he said had become sight and real – took 10 years but who cares, at least they couldn't force me to divorce the God I actually knew, they were ok with Him as long as it was my private affair and no one

had to look at 'Him in me' – far too much faith required, far too foolish and risky. 

And So I met Antichrist and then asked God to explain to me all this war talk and war teaching and battle cries and terms like warrior and princess – what the? Did Christianity jut morph into a medieval fair? Maybe I would have bought it all, if there had of been a joker, but to be honest, they were all far too serious, I smelled something rancid old and dead = and that's not funny. 

So no, it wasn't funny at all, I saw a large room full of desperate people giving money, trying to buy the 'kingdom' it made Jesus so angry and sad all at once, he took on a tone that reminds me of a stormy ocean, 'you cannot buy the kingdom!' 

but the hardest thing by far is the glitter, the drug of church that plays to deep heart needs and deep wounds and the real desire to lie down and rest somewhere – it is a mirage, it is a place you can come but not a place you'll be truly wanted. 

Well out I wandered, bleating like a sheep, my eyes too low and my heart too weighed down with years of wilderness walking to notice that I hadn't lost a thing, in fact I'd gained a whole lot. A whole lot of the kind of things needed in a real battle and a real war.

So what Lord, what's the battle? I asked Him – and really, quite simply it could be summed up in “let MY people go!” for Jesus is still in the business that the kingdom is made of, redemption, setting heart free, breaking chains, loosening fetters, and giving glasses of cold water in His name. 

Yes Jesus is still the same.