Dreams, Chaos, and Excommunication(or, Will the Real God Please Stand Up?)

Anybody know what it's like to have so much going on in your head you can hardly think straight?(I almost typed "can't hardly think straight" but while I freely use Texan and southern slang when speaking I find it extremely hard to use it when I'm writing- it just seems wrong, somehow.)

Anyway, that's what's been going on in my head for some time now. I have a supply of books to last me a good 12 months or so on a wide variety of subjects. I have over 140 articles and writings(over 16 MB) saved on my USB drive, and I add more articles to it everyday. I get to thinking about a subject and go to the internet for research, opening every article I can find and copying and pasting them all into Word documents arranged by subject or specific theme. These documents often span several dozens of pages. The articles cover every angle of the subject from pros to cons and everything in between, and from all sorts of writers from all sorts of backgrounds, from educated to non-educated, traditional, contemporary, modern, and postmodern thinkers. I've had more questions about things having to do with God, the Christian journey, and modern theology in the past 2 years than I have in the 27 years of my life before that.

These questions, and subjects I'm thinking about and researching, cover just about anything and everything you can think of. Some of the things I've been really thinking, praying, and studying about lately have been the presthood of all believers, institutional "church", house church, charismatic and pentecostal worship, the modern clergy, Old Testament Law vs. the New Covenant, and tithing.(just a side note- did you know that the mosaic law didn't command Jews to give 10Ðthere were actually three different tithes, of which one was every three years, making a total of 23.3hat the Jews were commanded to give! All of these were tithes of the product of the land- produce, livestock, etc. None of them referred to income. One of them was commanded to be transported, and if it was too much to carry it could be converted to money and spent on whatever the person wanted to, even strong drink! It's true! look it up![Deut. 14:22-29])

Now some of you have had to listen to some of my musings on many subjects, so you know how my mind has been working lately. I really believe Father has brought me into a season where He is revealing things to me to take me into a new level of relationship with Him. These are not things to me that are worth arguing over, as I do not believe that they will change whether you will spend eternity with Him or not. The ONLY thing that will exclude someone from an eternity with Christ is a rejection of the gift of salvation through Jesus.(that's a whole other blog for another time.)

Now already there may be some of you thinking I'm heading off the deep end, and that's fine. But I'm to the place where I refuse to be bottle fed anymore. I refuse to let someone else cut up my food for me and feed it to me. It is time for me to feed myself, and not assume that everything that is given to me is entirely edible or good for me. I am learning to think for myself and search the scriptures for myself, to "work out my own salvation with fear and trembling". It's the beauty of being a priest- and we ALL are priests, according to the Word- I don't need someone else to hear God for me. I don't need someone else to tell me what the Bible says, nor should I depend on someone else to always do it for me. They will interpret the Scriptures according to their journey, and their journey is not the same as mine. I have a responsibility to hear what God is saying through the scriptures to me for myself.

And yes, I realize some of this could get me excommunicated. Jessica, don't go telling SAGU about this blog. lol Pretty soon Bro. Trask will be sending out a recall on my ministerial papers. But when I stand before Father at the end of the present age, it will not be good enough to say "Well, that's what they taught me!" He will just say, "Didn't I give you my Word to instruct you, a brain to think and learn, my Spirit to discern and guide, and free will to decide and choose?"

So here I am again, at the end of a long seemingly random bog. You now can see the way my brain thinks- almost like "stream of counsciousness" style writing, in a wierd sort of way. And on top of all these thoughts, amongst rethinking the God I was always taught to know an the theology I've always been taught to believe, the real God gives me these crazy dreams! Or revives dreams he planted in me long ago but I had forgotten- well just one dream, an old dream that suddenly is beginning to make sense in the context of the place he has brought me to. It is crazy to think of, but it just makes so much sense in this season of my life, with everything He's been teaching and showing me over the past two years(I often think of this time as my own renaissance period. Or my own personal Industrial Revolution, without all the industry and revolution.). Or is it just my own desire to do something new, to know Him and make Him known, to connect, to finally find a real sense of community, and to escape the mundane rut of modern evangelical Christianity?

Agh....maybe I'll never know. Maybe my blogs will never make sense. Maybe I'll never get all my books read and thoughts sorted out and my theology all worked out and my dreams realized. One thing's for certain, I have enjoyed the journey...and I can't wait to see where Father leads me next.