This was the image that came into my mind this morning as God spoke to me about wrong compassion. A burglar by a home's window looking inside. It gives me the heebie jeebies.
I was delighted when God resumed car conversations this morning. We always talk, but I knew this convo was specifically to write down and share in this context so I was happy. Lately I'd been writing about dreams from the past.
This conversation began with God showing me a lot of women. "A generation" He spoke into my mind specifically. I asked what that means because God uses words differently than I/we do sometimes. Generation can mean age, time, or a subset of a literal generation. It felt like a very large group, grouped together for a unified purpose within a time.
This specific group is comprised of women who profess and know about God.
God was talking to me about how He made women to be compassionate. Nurturers. Warm. Loving. With a natural desire to take care of people and make people feel taken care of. Barf emoji all you want, but He did. He put in us that side of Him in a big way. He doesn't give things He doesn't have, that would make Him a thief and He's not.
He's nurturing, warm, and loving, and loves to take care of people. He likes to see people have what they need.
He gave us a big dose of that part of Him, to the point of it being a distinguishing and beautiful characteristic. He finds it so beautiful. He wanted me to say that, He finds our nurturing beautiful and it is not useless, a liability or trivial in any way. It's not unimportant.
Sidenote: A quality being exploited or misused in a person does not make that characteristic ugly, it makes the exploiter wrong.
Continuing: I've said before that there is a real enemy on this earth. He explained to me that this dusty enemy (dusty is my word), uses this compassion, manipulates it, as a way of coming between this generation and Him.
He explained to me that the way the dusty one does this is by convincing women they are more compassionate, more loving than God.
As I typed this, He showed me a way that I do it, which I wasn't expecting. I thought this was just for ya'll no lie. I'll tell you how I do at the end so I stay on task here.
The enemy knows our natural inclination is to nurture, to love everyone. To want everyone to be ok and feel taken care of. So when God says something or asks something that appears to go against this love, what can happen is that we choose our own definition of what love looks like in that moment. Done over and over again, this separates us from God in that it strains our relationship with Him because how can you love, worship, and obey a God you are better than?
Do you understand?
The minute someone judges God as being deficient in any area, He is taken off the throne in their live and relegated somewhere else. Sometimes just one rung lower, but in God's eyes it may as well be the garbage. He doesn't sit anywhere but His throne. He's worthy and knows it. Not in a braggy way, He's just God alright? Why should He pretend to be anything but? God showed me that people don't even truly realize or confront within themselves when they demoted Him in their minds. Some do, but most are living with the disconnect.
He showed me a generation of women who believe in Him and loved Him with a pure love when they were young*, but at one point, came to the conclusion they are more loving than God, they can love better than God, and that God is not truly loving at all.
*He misses what you both had, too. Very much so.
Some walked away completely. Some made a god of themselves and worship regularly. Some stayed in buildings but held quiet audience with other idols and put God on trial in their hearts every day. Some believe they stayed constructed a god in their own image and will wake up to find they are worshipping something entirely different and entirely beastly. When the light comes on, you will be shocked to see what you bow to. It is not God.
He showed me a trembling confused, lost and sad heart, one in perpetual conflict, one without peace, as the result of this choice. A woman who knows something is wrong and keeps trying to make it right by diving deeper into this life of false love, finding ways to earn virtue within it, but can't.
The way out, He told me, is to return. He showed me the question marks you have and said to bring them.
How my relationship with God works, is that when there is something I don't understand, something that feels wrong in Him (I get mad at God and argue at times, biggest brat around), I don't ignore it. I pray and I research. I ask Him. Because I know He is good and there is an answer. What happens 90% of the time is that I find the answer pretty quickly. 5% of the time, I find it after awhile of seeking. There's about 5% left that I don't understand. I'm not saying I understand 95% of God, what I mean is in terms of my theology, there is 95% that makes complete sense to me.
I let Him hold my question marks because I trust Him. I'm not stupid, I just trust Him.
If God were 100% comprehendible He would not be God. One has to logically accept that the One who made literal stars MIGHT be above our complete understanding, no? C'mon now.
Consider one's children. My kids spend a lot of time with me but when I really think about it, they know a very 2D version of me. They barely know me at all, actually. They know me within a specific context and time frame. I had a life before them. A long one. But even speaking jut about the present, they don't know many of my struggles, the things going on behind the scenes in this house, what it takes to even keep this house going, they don't know everything on my mind or the plans I have. They can't understand all of me, it's not relevant to their experience and frankly, it would be inappropriate and a heavy burden for them to carry all of who I am. They couldn't bear knowing all of me. Right now, I need to be simply their mom
I don't know how to say this kindly, but God wants this generation to choose. You can't say you love Him with your mouth and secretly believe He's not worthy of being God because you're better at love.
He showed me the conflict inside of this generation of women operating as a relationship strained, but literally, as in choked. The enemy had his hands wrapped around the relationship- the umbilical cord- between them and God.
When He showed me this, I felt like I was missing something. I already knew the enemy liked to inflict pain and stress, but it felt like there was more. I kept asking God to show me what I was missing, what I wasn't seeing or understanding. The enemy doesn't just like to cause strain or stress to no end, unfortunately, I've had a lot of experience with him and know that would never satisfy. There's always a target, and end goal (often death).
Then God showed me a child and it all came together.
Women, when your relationship with God is choked, strained, like a hose being stepped on or twisted in the middle so water can't flow through it, the goal is to prevent any of the love of God you once felt from reaching your children.
Awhile ago I was talking to a friend and was in a sad place. I was saying how I didn't really want things for myself, I just wanted them for my kids. My friend told me that's not how it works: what's in your life overflows onto your kids.
And that's what God showed me morning. The attacks a parent faces are almost never about the adult, sadly. They're about the children. Please believe me when I say the enemy wants to wreck their lives before they begin and a huge, enormous, critical part of that is stopping the flow of God in your life so the joy, love and peace that God fills your cup with does not overflow and drench them.
Think about it. Where did your childhood love of Jesus come from? Probably decisions your parents made to get you around places and people you could feel Him through. Or the way they talked about Him. Stories they told you, songs they played and sung. His love was carried on the wind of what they did and even when done imperfectly, some splashed. They never did it alone anyway, He helped them. Angels assisted, too. The Spirit inspired. Jesus walked and breathed on their efforts.
But when a relationship is strained, people get quiet. They avoid each other. Say one or two low, quick words. Avoid eye contact. Try not to be alone in the same room.
In a garden, a long, long time ago, a snake asked a woman if God really was as good as she thought He was.
All these years later, the same question is being asked.
Is He good? Am I better?
I've learned through trial and many error that He is and I'm not. He gave women brilliant minds in addition to big hearts. We're allowed to ask questions. We can bring them. He loves us and loves talking to us.
But you gotta stay in the room where He is. Don't leave. Don't craft new gods. Stop putting random things on the throne or worse, trying to sit on it. Ain't no space lol. Don't fool yourself into thinking you love better than He does. People make terrible gods.
He's not a liar. He's not your dad. He's not your boyfriend. He's not your husband. He's not that weird pastor. He's not that church lady. He's not your ex. He''s not that school. He's not the world.
He's God. He is the source of love and is perfect at a loving. Go make it right.
love, Bunmi
The verse, I heard it early, is:
"Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." -Joshua 24:15
*Oh yeah, I said I would share how it shows up in my house. For me, it's letting the child I feel the most guilt about call the shots, letting those emotions move me more than God's voice does. I'm fixing it.