Drawing in the Sand….

If you have been following me over at Crossswalk.com…especially as I have been posting my series about the “Earthquakes” in my life – the posts where I realized that much of what I had believed about my faith in God was being shaken to the core – you might have noticed that one in particular has been getting a lot of feedback on it.  The one entitled “Earthquakes: Are Men the Only Qualified Leaders?”

I engaged in some of the early conversation…knowing full well that I most likely would be talking either to people who already believe what I believe or just to hear myself talk.  I fully know that people set in their ways are not interested in changing, or even being open to the idea that there could be different ways to look at things.  I know I certainly wasn’t that interested until a little over a year ago.

The thing is, I really desire to be able to take the focus off of me and what I am saying…and to do what Jesus was so very good at: to point it back to them and the condition of their hearts.  I have been racking my brain on how to do this…praying for God to give me a way to “draw in the sand” so to speak to allow them time to realize ….well realize what?  

Well, my humanness wants to convince them that they are the ones being deceived….not me.  To show them that human tradition is predominating their scripture – not God.  That all of the arguments, all their rebukes, all their well-meaning prayers that I would be re-converted to their line of thinking is really making them out to be the Pharisees of our days.  That they cannot see that their comments are feeding a societal system where Power & Control are allowed to dominate….where FREEDOM is suppressed not only for women but also for men.  That this line of thinking is often times what leads women to leave their homes for shelters, leaving churches for the society, leaving God for idols.  

This is why so many of my generation and younger are being lost from the church.  For when we hold hard lines without being welcoming and open to others…we only serve to push people away from Jesus and the love that He brings.   

I want to share that I NEVER went looking for anything other than Complementarism – for I didn’t know anything else existed.  To me, society was portrayed as being over feminist…and I was to be different than society – so I was what I thought of as “traditionalist.”

However, I now see that society isn’t really a free society for any of us  – only a society where women certainly have more rights than ever before.  Yet, we are all entrapped in a bitter battle of the sexes – dogging on the other sex, blaming the others for the plight of society and the world at large and competing with one another until we are blue in the face.  Frankly, I am just so tired of it…is it just me?

I NEVER believed before 10 months ago that a woman could be a pastor…I was uncomfortable and awkward with the idea.  For heaven’s sake, the last election when Sarah Palin was running as VP candidate…I remember having a conversation with others that I didn’t think it was right for women to be Presidents of countries – using all those verses that everyone keeps pointing me to.  That was just 4 years ago….

Yet, I know that I cannot convince anyone that I used to be this woman…the good ol’ Christian gal who sat quietly in church and only spoke up in a room full of women – as I had believed this was what was right.  I cannot convince anyone that it wasn’t me who went looking to change…that it wasn’t me who went looking

~ for divorce 

   ~ nor equal opportunities for women 

    ~ nor to become a “liberal, left-wing” Christian (if I must put a title on myself)

     ~ nor to realize that God was the first feminist and that I now see myself lining up with the original ideas of the movement

     ~ nor to be a voice amongst the people of my generation…

…that I cannot convince anyone that I simply started praying something similar to this and that the outcome has led me to where I am now:

I cannot convince any one that it was the Spirit that prompted me in all that I have undertaken these last months…that it was Him that led me to start analyzing my thoughts and to see where these thoughts about men and women were keeping me in bondage.  

I realize I do not have the power to do what I so desperately care to do: to change a societal norm that has been in place since the Fall.  I am completely powerless on this issue.  All I simply wish to do is to get people to stop, to think and analyze their own beliefs….to see where they are making God into something He is not…into a prosperity God, into a security blanket….into a God that is all of the masculine but none of the feminine.  Yet, I am completely powerless to do this…for I know the human condition.

Yet, does that mean that I will be quiet?  That I will not voice my thoughts as God gives them to me?  That I won’t continue to make mistakes and speak rashly at points?  

For heaven’s sake – NO!

For I suppressed who I am for way too long…and I will not let any human intimidate me again into not following God’s call on my life.

For while I know I have a good part of the impulsive Peter in me who sometimes speaks her mind (or writes the words) too quickly before stopping to think….I am also a work in progress who is learning how to “draw in the sand…”  

So, I would like to say this with all the sincerity of my heart to those who are rebuking me, trying to correct me, to pray for my deliverance while reminding me that I am sinning:

“Thank you!  Sincerely thank you!  A year ago your criticism and rebuke would have made me waiver and made me start to think that I was doing something wrong, that who I was trying to be was not right and that I needed to stuff her back into her neat little box.  It would have made me stop being who I was.

However, as the comments continue to pour in – and as I continue to read them…I am amazed that I have the understanding of where you are coming from.  I do…I completely understand what you are saying because I used to believe it too.  God only knows I too probably would have left comments trying to rebuke and correct this misguided girl.

Now, however – in my humanness – I want to defend myself against what you are saying, to hope that you will be convinced of my honest conversion.  Yet, I know this will do nothing more than cause the hairs on our necks to rise.  As I keep on commenting – I am not interested in this.  Instead, I will leave you all with this:

I can honestly say that this is God’s movement in my life…not yours, not mine – but His.  And instead of letting people push my boundaries and letting others declare what is right for me…I am standing firm in what I know is true and right for me BASED on God’s revelation to me.  I never thought just a year ago that I would be able to be standing here….and to me that means I am growing, learning and living as Christ called me to live.

I cannot say that of myself before last year…in fact I was becoming less and less like Christ the more I followed that path I was on….I was full of judgement and criticisms, disdain and distrust for others who didn’t line up to what I was convinced of was the only way to see the scriptures.  It makes me shudder to think of who I was without even knowing it.

To the one man who mentioned that I am ruining 2000 years of work with my one single, solitary blog…”wow” is all I can say.  I would never imagine that I would have this kind of power…so thank you for thinking I do.  I can only pray that this is true – but don’t quite believe it to be true myself.  I guess only God knows…and only time will tell.

In the end…if I am wrong about what I am saying, if it is only from my effort …then it will fail – God will bring me down and judge me accordingly.  But…if I speak the Truth according to God – then no man or woman will be able to stop that Truth from spreading.  They will only find themselves fighting against God himself.”