This is my rant…
ON BECOMING THE UGLY NASTINESS I HATE TO SEE BUT LOVE TO JUDGE IN THE WORLD…
ON WHEN I REALISED MY CLAPBACK WAS BEING MESSED WITH…
“Every matter of dispute can either be settled or inflamed, depending on the ‘wind of words’ you blow on it. Mind your words, not just your wounds.” – Sam Kputu
Yes, it IS possible to become the ugly nastiness I hate to see in the world but love to judge. You may recall, I recently published a blogpost with this topic (You can find the link to this blogpost below).
I choose these views not because they come to me naturally…NOPE! They don’t! LOL! I am very good at CLAPPING BACK AT ANYONE who I think is doing me, or the world wrong. But I choose to TRY TO CHOOSE ‘the God way’ (so help me God) because my way, ‘the Toyin way’ that feels oh so logical and ‘true’ in the moment of heat, has never proven to bring peace to me, or to the world for even one second.
Instead, my way fuels the sparks and fans the flames.
So I choose and accept, that my way is not the way to peace, neither is it the way to resolving the pain and broken nastiness I hate to see but love to judge in the world.
Can YOU say that ‘your way’ brings peace, not just for you, in a moment…but true healing, reconciliation, restoration of ‘sanity’ to all? When you are riled up because of yet another horrific incident in your neighbourhood/family, or something absurd your government just did, or something hateful another group of people just demonstrated…when you are all fired up and ready to take action, ask yourself, ARE YOU FUELLING THE SPARKS AND FANNING THE FLAMES? Are you only paying attention to your wounds, and not to whether your reaction (justified or not) will actually take the world to a better place of healing?
We often blame God for the pain, hatred and strife we see in the world, but when it comes to choosing how to handle it, we opt for our own way – a way that comes naturally and that makes sense to us. Then we blame God when it gets worse and worse. Then we shake our fists at the heavens and demand to know what kind of God could see so much suffering and heartache in the world, and sit back and do nothing about it.
Well, I know God is not sitting back and doing nothing about it. I know that, because I have experienced that. So, what is He doing? What is the ‘God way’, or ‘the narrow way’ when we face the nastiness we hate to see in the world?
Brace yourself. I’m gettin’ ready to call it like it is, and this will annoy some, because most of us do not like the softer side of God, when it is being extended to people that we think are the unmentionables extraordinaire. We only like the softer side of God when He is extending it to us (which, by the way, is always). But here goes – the God way:
The Bible (John 8:1-11 – go look it up) tells us a true story of a time when the ‘very religious’ people of that time brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus. They threw her at His feet and hurled all the ‘right’ accusations at her. She was caught in adultery. No biggie, in our current age, but back then, it was punishable by stoning! And that is what her accusers were demanding – that Jesus ‘sentence’ her to a gruesome death.
Any of this sound familiar?
Sentenced anybody lately (in your heart)? Damned any group of people to hell and beyond lately?
What are the horrific things that our mainstream culture nowadays considers to be a no-no? What are the things you see in the world that horrify YOU right now? Yes…think about it. Place it front and centre of your mind…now hear me. It’s that thing that I am talking about! Yes. Feel the pinch…and…now let’s continue. How did Jesus deal?
He was quiet…
…for a bit…
Then He made a statement that silenced the masses (which would include you and I, most of the time).
“He who is without sin, cast the first stone.”
I have goosebumps, just typing that.
Which of you, right now, has a clean slate? No, you may not be dirty with what irks you the most in the world. No, you may not be the most prejudiced guy in the room, or the most corrupt, or the most unfaithful, or the most murderous…but what’s your thing? We all have a thing. What’s yours? What’s your thing that you do that is harmful to your soul and spirit, hurtful to others, or to the Most High God?
Now…why are you ready to crucify someone doing something that is granted, horrific, but you are giving yourself a pass from being judged with the same stick? Why are you not peddling hashtags all over social media and throwing hateful and intolerant rants around about your thing, but you are trigger happy to do it about someone else’s thing?
Or are there grades of horrific? Are there grades of ‘things’?
In our eyes, yes, there are grades. But not in God’s eyes, clearly.
Because in that story I told you, Jesus did not say that anybody else who had NOT committed adultery should go ahead and hurl the first stone at the woman. Rather, He said, “he who is without [any] sin, cast the first stone”…
Of course…no one could move…no one could go ahead to execute the judgment they had, up until moments before that, felt entitled to execute. Because they all had their own nice laundry list of nastiness. Just like I do…and you may too…
Then Jesus told the lady the most amazing thing…something that sadly, He has had very many reasons and occasions to tell me:
“I also do not condemn you.”
Wait. Was that all? Did Jesus just pat this woman on the back for doing something that even in this day and age, we know in our gut is wrong, and it brings much hurt and pain into the world? Did He just send her on her merry way to continue hurting people and contributing to the breakdown of the family unit? Did He give her a pass to go ahead and keep adding to the world’s problems?
No.
Jesus instructed the lady to go her way, and STOP DOING THE NASTY with people that were not hers to do the nasty with. (LOL!)
That is the JESUS WAY. He does not condemn us for our nastiness. He does not ‘clapback’ at us for our mess ups. He loves us so indescribably, and knows that we are a mess without Him. So He forgives us and prevents the crowds from judging us…yes…including you and I who don’t think we are ‘that bad’…
BUT He ALSO sets us up to make better choices in life. He sets us up with the power to stop doing those things that break our world even further. He sets us up to be the best version of ourselves -the version of His glory that He designed us to carry. And lastly, He sets us up to ‘go and do likewise’, that is, to partner with Him to bring real, restorative solutions to the ugly nastiness that we hate to see in the world.
President GW Bush recently said, “We judge others by the worst examples of their kind, but we like to judge ourselves by our best intentions.”
I know I have been guilty of this. And I know that this is a huge part of the problem we see in the world. We excuse our own nastiness but we judge others fiercely.
We love to hate the injustices, or the ‘unrighteousness’ we see, and yet, in our quest to correct the wrong, we become the wrong. We become self-righteous. We become proud. We become hateful. We become accusing. We become crass. We become prejudiced. We become divisive. We become guilty of the very stuff we are judging. We become the very ugly nastiness that we hate to see but love to judge in the world.
And then problems in our lives and in the world only get exacerbated, and not resolved…and vicious cycles of pain get entrenched and become way more cutting, because those who were meant to be solution-bringers have become problem-stirrers.
I will try to think about this the next time I see something in the world that irks me, and I’m getting ready to CLAP RIGHT BACK (ooops, that already happened this morning!)
Will you join me?
Will you dare to take the road less travelled? Will you dare to choose ‘the narrow way’?
Let’s be the true solution bringers that God has set us up to be in the world. He is not sitting back waiting for us humans to destroy ourselves, so that He can create a better world with better people. He sent His Son to pay the ultimate price for the healing of our broken world and lives. Then He sent YOU and I to entrench and effect His love, peace and healing in the world. Jesus did His part by laying down His life, basically as a ransom for us. Unnatural! Unheard of! But it was the price – so He paid it in love. Now He invites us to follow suit by being willing to do the unnatural, for the sake of healing our world.
Don’t become the very nastiness that you hate to see but love to judge in the world. Choose the God way, the narrow way. It leads to life.
As always, I end my rants by saying:
I am Toyin…
…fully convicted by my own words, and very much under construction in the hands of my God.
Here are the blogposts I referred to above:
Read…share…comment…
The B.O.O.M Walk Program by Toyin Oladiran
We all come from somewhere. We all have our battle scars. We all have those life experiences, past or even ongoing, that have forced us into shadowy corners in our lives, preventing us from living fully, loving fully and most of all, serving God to the uttermost.
Some of us have carried on in this way, and gone on to do life ‘normally’, to become pastors, engineers, fathers, builders, lovers, secretaries, government officials, wives, teachers, sports coaches, gym instructors, you name it. Yet many are living a façade; a classic tale of smokes and mirrors. Many are carrying around, and being defined by those pivotal life experiences. Many have learnt to accept that this is just the way life is – living with and from the baggage.
What’s your scar? Where does it come from? Is it still driving your thoughts and responses to life? Are you tired of your scars keeping you wedged off into the fringes and sidelines of life, constantly angry, bitter, frustrated, rejected, insecure, proud, self-righteous … etc?
That’s what you and I will be tackling with the HOLY SPIRIT in The B.O.O.M WALK PROGRAM.💥
This Program is for EVERYONE…
…Yes, I said EVERYONE!
Be careful now. Do not think that only people who struggle with what we erroneously call ‘the big sins’ like murder, slavery, adultery etc struggle with the ‘Old Man’ (‘B.O.O.M’ stands for ‘bow out, Old Man’). Yes those are reflections of the ‘Old Man’ at work, but for the vast majority of people, the traits of the ‘Old Man’ are way more subtle, and internal.
I’m talking anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, self-righteousness, pride, fear, insecurity, rebellion against God, inferiority complex, lack of self-control…the list can go on.
The ‘Old Man’ thrives in secrecy… it’s all about the state of the mind, isn’t it?
Come on. Do not be afraid! And do not settle for more of the same!
Click here now to indicate your interest and to begin to prepare your heart and your spaces. The kind of transformation we are talking about here does not come by the click of a finger, neither does it come by lurking in a spectator’s seat. You need to take a bold step, own who you are and where you are at, and come along, for The B.O.O.M Walk Program.
I cannot WAIT to work with you. And if I am so excited about it, imagine how God, the Incredible Lover of your soul feels?😉
Hugs and Love,
Toyin Oladiran (Christian Transformational Coach and Creator of The B.O.O.M Walk Program)
The Narrow Gateway
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