Heavens and Earth bear witness

Upon reading Isaiah 1...

The heavens and the earth bear witness. They have heard what you have said, they have seen what we have done. We have forgotten the you, who gives us life. We've lost our center, the axis upon which our lives turn. We've turned away from you, the hand that feeds us. We are so stupid!

No wonder we are corrupt children. If you are not our King, then we will be a slave to all other tyrants and usurpers. Our strategies for life, which we errect like titantic idols, become cruel and inescapable oppressors. We become twisted little imps beneath their weight, clutching and scratching to survive. Your Kingdom is our freedom.

This is why life sucks. We are beaten until there is not an inch of us that is not a bruise or gaping wound. And yet we still continue in our idiotic impirsonment. Why? Oh, Father, you know the answer. We would rather hold on to the lie we belong to ourselves. Many of us are willing to die for that lie. Many of us do.

Our families are dysfunctional. Our consumerism is unsustainable. The environment chokes on our poisons. We are all vampires on each other, sucking life from our neighbor. We wallow in our loneliness, though surrounded by people. Our lives, though crammed with stuff and full of activity, opulence, and luxury are dead and miserable. We are like ugly, starving children clutching ash piles as if they were treasure. Unless you had awakened some of us, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah -- gone without a trace.

Because we fail to admit our poverty to you, our worship is a lie. All of our sacrifices, offerings, feasts, and celebrations amount to manipulation. Though we run before you and fall on our knees to beg you to increase our hideous wealth and preserve the wretchedness of our lives, you take no pleasure in our gifts and refuse to attend our twisted assemblies. You will not bear these chains of our religion. You will not look at us or even listen to our prayers.

Creativity becomes idolatry if not done in response to you, the Creator. Art is only idol making. Worship is not worship, unless it is a conversation with the Living God. But we attempt to please you by making things with blood-covered hands. Our art is perverted by the sickness of our souls and becomes monstrous abominations. We speak empty flattery to you through filthy mouths and feshering lips.

Father, we cannot wash ourselves. Where can we put our evil that you won't see it? Though we try, we cannot stop doing wrong. Who will teach us to do right? We don't know how to seek justice, and have no idea how to encourage and defend the oppressed.

But you say to us,

Come now, let us reason together.
Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be white as snow;
thought they are crimson,
they shall be like wool.
If you are willing to be obedient,
you will east the best from the land;
but if you resist and rebell,
you will be devoured by the sword.

Our civilization is a slut. We are prostitutes. We give ourselves to anyone and anything that makes us flimsy and plastic promises. Perhpas once we had justice, but now we are all murderers in one way or another -- if not literally, than by how we mentally butcher each other. Everything that we think is precious is really crap. Our passions and beliefs are so watered down we are disgusting. Our leaders are in it for the money, whether politicians or many pastors. Few of them take care of anyone, because there's no money in it.

But you promise that you will purge us. You're going to clean up and make things right again. You will remove those who rebel against you and destroy those who refuse to walk with you. The rest of us will be ashamed of the things we used to trust in and the ways we attempted to manipulate you. Every proud person who trusts in their own strength will go up in smoke, as if they were gasoline and their strategies a spark.

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Almighty God, why in the world do I treat the condition of our race as light thing? Convince my soul that following you is not a beneficial option -- a way to increase both our earthly and heavenly porfolios. It is life, and all those who refuse it will die. Perhaps not because you are vengeful, but because you are the source of life. Apart from you there is nothing, so if we chose "apart from you" that is what we will fall into -- nothing.

This is why discipleship is so serious. This is why the Kingdom must be preached and why we must urgently help people into it. Otherwise, life is crap. I've seen it -- O remind me Spirit -- over and over. Those who choose the Kingdom find life with the King full and pure. They find integrity and honesty. But those who don't end up turning tricks with the johns of every other strategy for living. At first the pay seems good, but before long become despised sluts, abused by the very things that promised to take care of them.

Jesus, I don't want to make sluts out of anyone. How can I help them to fall in love with you, Husband of our hearts? Otherwise, I am only pimping them out to religious practice, vain meetings, false strategies and gross manipulation. I am leaving them to be raped by their own consumerism, materialism, individualism, and hedonism. Only by discipleship to you will they find authenticity, respect, creativity, passion, life. Tell this to my soul that longs to sell easy and cheap tricks and buy into them myself.