^5' This is what the LORD says:
   “What fault did your ancestors find in me,
   that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
   and became worthless themselves.
⁶ They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD,
   who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
   through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
   a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
⁷ I brought you into a fertile land
   to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
   and made my inheritance detestable.
⁸ The priests did not ask,
   ‘Where is the LORD?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
   the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
   following worthless idols.'
- Jeremiah 2:5-8

Sound like another country we know?  I think we all know where I'm going with this but first I'll give you some background.  God is speaking to Jeremiah here about the land of Israel, they've fallen away and He's trying to draw them back in. 

I'm going to be embarrassingly honest with you, I was reading this chapter while trying to walk the treadmill.  I only got through to the eighth verse before I stopped reading and began to pray, cry, and run as hard as I could.  I've made a lot of comments lately, in fact there are few people dear to my heart that I've not discussed with what I think is coming to America.  If you know me at all you know being serious about anything is not my thing, my favorite motto is if it won't matter in a year it shouldn't matter right now.  The problem with that is what I see coming to America in the next year is a second Great Depression, that's going to matter in a year, in ten years, my generations grandchildren will come home from school and ask us about it for their history papers.  So I've gotten serious about the state of our country and when I read this scripture each line was like salt in the wound.  There's a reason it was so painful, here comes the embarrassingly honest part.

When I finished reading I began to cry out to God to save this country.  I began to beg Him not to destroy it, recounting the story of Sodom and Gomorrah where He promised not to destroy the towns if there was even 5 good people living there.  I heard my answer immediately, and as usual He didn't candy coat anything, here's the way the convo went.

Me: God please don't destroy this country, there are way more than 5 Godly people here.
God: I'm not destroying it, the people are.
Me: What can I do God, move in me I'll go where you want me to go.
God: Make a change.
Me: God I can't make a change big enough to move the people of this country there are millions of them.
God: No, not them, you.  Make a change, come up higher.

At this point y'all my flesh was screaming.  I've been making changes, huge, painful, devastating changes in myself at God's prodding (if you haven't heard the story about 4 months ago God began to call me to come up higher, it's been an interesting 4 months).  My flesh was ready to give up, my flesh thought I was a pretty darn good person already, but inside of me, in my soul, the Ten Commandments began to play one at a time over and over again. 

1. Have no other god's before me.  (Does anyone else see a fat hundred dollar bill when they read the first commandment because I do.  I also see a giant portrait of myself, I am the god I put before God.  I am who I worship when I selfishly do what I want instead of what His word tells me to do.)
2. Make no engraven image to worship. (I'm not going to lie to you this one doesn't effect me as much, LOL)
3. Do not take the Lord's name in vein. (Now I'm not much of a cursor, but I did say oh my God, and OMG all the time.  I understand now that the Lord's name is holy, reverent, and shouldn't be used unless we're speaking directly about Him.  Remember if I say the B word while speaking about a female dog I'm not saying a bad word but when I take it out of it's context all the sudden it becomes a huge insult.  There are many Jewish people out there that have so much respect for God's name they blank it out when writing it like this G-d.)
4. Remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy, don't WORK.  (As a person I usually do absolutely nothing on Sunday's, as a nation we have folded our hand here.  People working on Sunday isn't breaking a commandment anymore it's just them doing what they have to do.  We have to get away from that type of thinking, it's us taking our trust away from God, assuming that His commandments aren't in our best interest, and putting that trust in our own, massively incapable hands.)
5. Honor your father and mother.  (My father was an alcoholic and I honor him but not touching alcohol.  My mother abused hard drugs until I was 14, I honor her but not doing drugs.  Sometimes the most important way we can honor our parents is by learning from their mistakes.)
6. Do not kill folks. (Jesus expands on this is Matthew 5:21-22 and says if you continue to be angry at your brother or sister you're held just as responsible.  Why?  Because forgiveness is important to God, freely we received so freely we should give.  If you don't the consequences are yours to contend with.)
7. Do not commit adultery.  (Jesus expands on this one too, if you think about another person in a lustful way you've committed adultery already in your heart.  Watch your thoughts, they matter to, where the mind goes the man follows.)
8. You shall not steal.  (Don't think about stealing either, that's called coveting and it's a commandment too!)
9. You shall not give false witness against your neighbor.  (This means don't lie about other people.  Ever been caught in a He said She said situation?  Even little white lies are still lies, don't do it.  It's a trap of the enemy.)
10.  Do not covet.  (When you want what someone else has it's like saying straight to God, 'What you've given me isn't enough, I don't want what your plan for my life I want your plan for her life'.  Once again it boils down to trust, do we trust God that what He's given us is enough?  He who is faithful with little will be given much.)

With these, along with the scriptures from Jeremiah, my concern for America, and my own personal sins that I keep neatly hidden from most people rolling through my head I began to feel uncomfortable.  Anxious.  That still soft voice began to say over and over again 'run it out'.  I pushed the button to make the treadmill go faster (3.5) and the conversation got more intense. 

Me: God I know I've got all these problems to fix, I can't fix them on my own.  I can't do anything on my own, I need you.
God: I'm here.
Me: If I fix them will you save America?
God: You worry about fixing you.
(4.5)
Me: If I fix them will you use me to save America.
No answer.  Panic. 
God: Run it out.
(6.0)
I ran until I couldn't think, I couldn't ask any questions, I couldn't think about the fear, all I could do is listen.  The scriptures I love, the scriptures I trust, began to run through my head.

All things are possible with Christ who strengthens us.

For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you not to harm you.  Plans for a future and hope.

The one who began a good work in you will see it through. 

Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous.  Do not be discouraged, do not be terrified for the Lord your God is with you.

When I couldn't take it anymore, I heard 'Stop'. So I stopped. Then, that still, soft voice said this to me.  'Be prepared.' 

I cried, I got down on my hands and knees and I cried.  I wish I could say I'm not a proud person, but I am.  I don't like to cry, even worse than that I don't like to admit it to people.  But humility is a beautiful thing and I will humbly tell you right now that when I felt in my heart what God was asking me to do I cried.  Live an upright blameless life, be holy for your father in heaven is holy.  We've let to many little things slip between the cracks.  For as many amazing excuses as we have as Christians for the way we behave, there is not one good reason. 

There are two more commandments that Christ gives us.  Love your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor like yourself.  That, He said, was the greatest of commandments.  Love.  I've done a lot of blogging, a lot of talking, and a lot of thinking about love.  I saw a sign in a short video the other day that some protesters were holding in a town halfway across the world, they were protesting the Jewish nation and the signs read 'The gas chambers are ready again.'  There is so much hate.  Not just across the world but everywhere.  We have, as Christians, tolerated our Ten Commandments being ignored, how long before we tolerate the hate?  Are we already tolerating it?  Or worse, are we joining in?  God has called me to renew and restore myself like never before.  He has called me with great urgency for four months now to make the drastic changes in myself that I've felt were unnecessary all these years. 

We have been born, as Americans, in the promise land.  This is the greatest country in the world, it use to be one nation under God, but what is it becoming?  God doesn't belong just in a church, He belongs in every hallway, every doorway, every walkway, every street, and every home, and every heart.  Separation of church and state was designed to keep the state from interfering with what the church did, not to keep God's commandments out of court houses.  If you take Him out of the streets, out of the homes, out of the hearts of politicians and leaders, and try to put Him in the box of a church building then what protection does this country have?

When it's the darkest out light shines the brightest.  It's time for us to shine, it's time for us to renew ourselves, to restore ourselves back to the people God intended us to be.  Don't back down, don't give up, live upright and blameless lives.  Renew, restore, love.  Together we can bring this nation back to it's former glory.

I wrote those Ten Commandments down and posted them on our fridge.  It's a daily reminder that God has higher standerds for His people than the world does.

Deuteronomy 30:19

Deuteronomy 30:19

¹⁹I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life

I know this is going to be an awful serious blog and most people around Christmas time are light hearted and full of joy, and I am also for the most part.  There is, however, a small part of me that every year at Christmas time is reminded of the weighty decision I was called to make when I was 14.  That’s when God put two paths in front of my eyes, two words, cut and dry, black and white, life or death.  For some people it’s a slow fade to death, or a slow ascent towards life.  It’s important to remember that God deals with us all differently and just because your experience was different than mine it doesn’t make mine better or worse, just individual. 

There was nothing slow about my decision and like all the other times God as spoken to me it was blunt and to the point.  Maybe that’s because I don’t like being serious, I take everything lightly, so He has to be a little more stern with me.  I don’t know why He does things the way He does, but I trust Him. 

To be honest with you I had started going to church because my friend told me there was cute boys.  I went on and off with her for two years and there came the day when God confronted my heart.  I remember so well because just before that day I had been talking to a friend about the hole I felt in my life, in my body, what I called a ‘dad shaped hole’.  I didn’t realize then that the hole I was longing to have filled couldn’t be filled by any man, God was the only one that could heal that hurt. 

That day He put before me two paths, one of light, peace, joy, and life.  It was a life where I gave my whole heart to the Lord.  The second was one of statistics.  I’ve said it before, it’s sort of my catch phrase, I’m not a statistic I’m a success story.  The path to death, the second path, before me that day was one of drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual immorality, and intellectual decay.  It was the path I was statistically more likely to take.  I’ve been proud for many years to say I am not a statistic, I chose and still choose daily the first path, the path of life. 

That day God immediately began to patch up the hole in my vessel.  Why was that so important?  Because God is not an idiot, He’s actually quite the smarty pants.  He knows that if He pours fruit into a vessel with a hole in it that the fruit will fall out the bottom and be wasted.  God’s will is going to be done, if not by you He’ll find someone else.  So when we make the choice, when we choose life, He begins to patch up our hole or for some put back together a broken life. 

¹⁶And no one puts a piece of cloth that has not been shrunk on an old garment, for such a patch tears away from the garment and a worse rent (tear) is made.

¹⁷Neither is new wine put in old wineskins; for if it is, the skins burst and are torn in pieces, and the wine is spilled and the skins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.

Matthew 9:16-17

The most fascinating and moving part to me about this process is that He doesn’t pick up the old pieces and reuse them, He patches up our holes and pieces us back together with new clay, clay made with the blood of Christ.  Sometimes God puts us back together instantly and begins using us as vessels to carry His fruit wherever He needs it to go, but that was not the case for me.  It was a slow, and sometimes painful, process to patch up my gapping hole.  Why?  I think because had He done it quickly and began using me I would have grown haughty and proud, He searched my heart, I trust Him.  Once it was all patched up He began to fill my heart with things I hadn’t understood or ever known.  Where before there was chaos He gave me peace, for anger He gave me forgiveness, for fear He gave me faith, for hate He gave me love, and for loneliness He gave me Himself.  It took a long time to get to the point where my vessel could be used, and I’ve had to get up every morning and choose life over death, Christ over flesh.  There is nothing easy about Christianity, but it is always worth it.

That same choice is before you right now, life or death.  There is no gray here, there is no middle ground, it is all or nothing.  If you don’t give Him you’re all He can’t patch your holes or repair your broken pieces, and He won’t pour fruit into a broken vessel.  If you’re living in the world, if you’re waited to give Him your whole heart, if you think you have the right to your tomorrows, make the decision today.  Change courses and let God move in you’re life. 

If you had someone in your life who was to tell you they loved you but all the while they openly flirted, and dated other people right in front of you would you feel loved?  Would you feel important?  Would you stick around?  Luckily God is not man, He is going to stick around, but if you are flirting with sin, if you are dating the world, He sees and He longs for you to turn to Him.  He longs for you to love Him whole hearted, for you to view Him as the most important.  He cares more about you than anyone else ever can, I know you hear Him calling to you, I know you see the paths before you.  Choose you this day Life.