Confession

I have a confession.

Sometimes I doubt God,
I doubt that He excists. I doubt that He is Good.
I doubt that He loves me. I doubt the cross, and that it was enough.
Sometimes I am FULL of rage and anger,
especially towards God...
mostly because I feel like He hasn't delivered.

Yesterday I was so mad at God I told Him He was an asshole and I hated Him; I didn't want salvation anymore, He could take it back (I feel sick knowing I thought those things). I'm a thrower when I'm really crazy mad and so I imagined myself throwing things at God. For some reason what I had in my hands were tomatoes. I let the first one fly, and in that throw I put the force of my dissapointment, of my pain, hurt, anger, all of it. I watched it go, then watched as it splattered onto Jesus, hanging on the cross...I looked around. I was standing in the crowd of people screaming "CRUCIFY HIM!" The same ones who earlier had yelled, "HOSANNA! HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST!"

See they had worshipped a God of their desires. When they thought Jesus was restoring Jeruselum to power and prestige and he'd crush Roman rule they rejoiced and followed Him; they were willing to worship THAT king. But when they realized He spoke of a different Kingdom, and wasn't coming to deliver what they wanted they became a murderous mob and were willing to take the LIFE of this man because of it.
And so was I.

We all felt entitled to better, to more.
One thing I've learned is that entitlement is a dangerous feeling to have...

When I realized what I had become, and what I was doing I wept. I wept and dropped my tomatoes onto the ground, the red splattering over my shoes. I looked at Jesus on the cross, broken, bleeding, skin ripped from his body...and wept.
But the anger remained.

And then I covered my face with my hands and sank to my knees still weeping. I suddenly felt hands on me pulling my hands away from my face. I looked up, and the cross was empty!
And I heard Jesus say it, proclaim it.
"The cross is empty Yasemee. The cross is empty."

I knew that should give me peace, but it didn't. My entitlement, my anger had hardened my heart. And that scared me. I begged God to melt my heart, to bring me back to Him, to help me love Him again.

He did that today in ways I didn't expect.
But I learned that I never want to worship a fake Jesus, or hate the real one because He doesn't deliver exactly what I wanted. I want to love Him for who He is.
He is hard to follow, He is hard to understand, He is not happiness and rainbows all the time, His sayings are hard, He is not safe....but oh, He is SO Good!.
Who else can be all these things and be them so perfectly that they give life? Even his discipline is reason to rejoice!
I only know of one man like that. And I intend to follow him because He is just that:
He is everything, all in one.
The cross is empty.
The price was paid.

This morning I was listening to itunes, I didn't want to hear anything about God because I was still so angry with him...but my computer suddenly cut off and skipped to this spoken word.

The Lost Sheep by Nick Vitellaro