A Thousand Times ‘No’
So I was thinking, and have been on and off for a bit, of just making a series of posts called “I know it’s terrible”, as it seems that that what I want to call most of the posts that cross my mind of late. Since that seems overkill as the posts are often in little way related to each other beyond revealing some twist in my mental process, I just made a new category instead. Yay for wordpress.
So tonight I am sitting in church and someone has a prophetic word during worship and says, “Is it not enough that I died for you?” Now that may not be the exact quote, but it is only off by a word or two if not. Of course, as expected, people had the standard reply that yes, dying was enough. Enough for what? No idea, I find lately that people are oft light on details. This leads us to my “I know it’s terrible” moment. So...
I know it’s terrible, but my first thought after the initial question was “no”, followed in a moment by “no, of course not”. Ok, maybe I don’t know it’s terrible. Am I wrong in this? Did anyone else catch it and was just too polite to force a rephrase? I did note that one of the leadership did say ‘yes, the blood is enough’, which implies in my mind a different ‘enough’ than the original question, so perhaps it was subtly corrected then, or maybe I just heard a question being asked what wasn’t really asked.
I’m positive the speaker’s heart was in the right place, but intentions have never been good enough for me in those settings. Words have the power to sway crowds, so when you are in a group setting, your words need to be very accurate or you risk causing confusion later. Remember, individuals are smart. People/crowds are bleeding idiots.
Is it enough that a woman give birth to a child? If a mother throws her 2 year old out on the street, was it enough that she cared for the child for the first two years? Is it enough that she went through the pains of labor for her child? Assuming the child somehow survives, is the child expected to later respect and love that mother? You might can pull that the child should honor her mother (Exodus 20:12), but beyond that? If the child never wanted anything to do with the mother again, would anyone blame them or say they were wrong? I wouldn’t. I doubt you would either.
Of course one single act from the past isn’t enough. Though as I said, enough for what was never asked. Legally enough? Enough to cover our sins? Well then sure. But that’s like asking if 8 billion dollars is enough for that car I want. Of course it is, that was never in doubt. Since we already know the obvious, the question should be about something else. Is it enough that we don’t need anything else? Is it enough that we don’t want anything else? Is it enough that we should be ok on our own with what we know now?
Then no. No. A thousand times no.
