Wine Pressing

Have you ever wanted to die?
Have you ever wondered what it feels like
to beg the Almighty God for death,
too scared or too selfless or too sober
to seriously consider suicide, to do it yourself,
but too broken, too bitter, 
too battered, bruised, and bombarded 
to be any more patient with the time you have left?

If you haven’t, 
allow me to give you a look behind the scenes.
I think you’ll agree that this movie is to die for.
But if you’ve had these thoughts,
if you’ve been ready to press the big red STOP button for too long,
you are not alone.
I would call you a survivor of this world, 
but that would imply that to live is to rebel,
that living is itself a victory, 
and I’m not always sure myself.
The darkness has cracked open my shell,
poured out my naivete.

But they say I’m a seed, 
and a seed cannot see its leaves when it is planted
in dirt, beneath mud, in soil, beneath ground, 
where breathing ain’t so easy.
But it is not comfortable being cracked open,
the growth process is slow, and
it doesn’t matter 
how strong or how rich the seed
because everything fades.
Every knee bows.
Every body is broken.
And whether the breaking is a just phase
or a permanent state will depend on where your hope is.

I promise you
these are not corny Christian platitudes,
I speak from experience.
I drank a glutton’s fill of bitterness,
I squirmed, I sunk, I shifted,
I started to believe my God was malicious.
Couldn’t see his blueprint,
so I resisted instruction,
dismissed the cross
‘cause I did not ask to first be devil
then a temple under construction, no — 
I asked for nothing. 
I did not sanction my first heartbeat,
did not audition for his eternal story,
I did not care for his glory,
or volunteer to be born unworthy,
I did not make myself unholy,
I was dragged into this world and
as my mind continued to plunge deeper into its cave,
away from the embrace of its Creator,
into a maze, a mental arcade with Lucifer’s favorite game,
I figured this kind of separation from Christ 
must be what it feels like 
to dip your toes in the burning lake.

I found the source of my pain,
I touched the thought of my grave and realized
that I cried
because I would rather have died
than leave my comfort zone.
over and over and over and over and over again — 
why would I submit to a God 
so determined to make me uncomfortable?
I been through battles, I ignored my trauma, 
I buried my demons, kept my scars quiet, 
I acquired a casual taste for the serpent’s bite and
I saw no help in sight,
and yet somehow, I still felt guilty, 
like I was a defective Christian.

But as I wrote these lines, 
I began to wonder why the body of Christ 
has become so corny, 
so willfully ignorant & dismissive, 
so dramatically desperate for depth yet so evidently deficient.
We have forgotten how to lament
and our religion is a prison
with a shadow of violence — 
busy bickering over foolishness 
while our members writhe in pain in silence.
Our pride is quiet,
but our 10,000 commandments are loud,
and our empathy is often nowhere to be found.
Spiritually lazy saints with hollow apologetics and forced smiles, 
you’d think the Spirit of God was out here raising cowards.

Our theology shallow, our prayers are wild,
shouting tongues in public 
but when was the last time
you picked another believer up out of the gutter and prophesied?
When was the last time
you studied a couple of verses for an hour?
See your life? Corny Christian
I caught you quoting scriptures out of context.
We've been asleep,
speechless when we ought to speak yet
ready to blow horns with hypocrisy from the streets when
we ought to heed James 1:19 and
be quick to listen.

Dear family, dear Christians,
I don't know if you've noticed,
but in 2019, #anxiety is as common as little boys with Trojans.
And young and broken or old and hopeless,
we are all seeds soaked in His blood,
redeemed, loved but
scarred in places that no longer wish to open.
We gone need more than cute Christian quotes to remind folks who our hope is.

Our buildings, our lyrics
are not our only instruments of worship.
Our lives, our service, our faith
sing a thousand songs,
and when midnight comes,
may those songs be the threads that keep us tethered to the One
who knit and formed us in the dark of our mother's wombs.
May our family of believers reminds us
that even in the darkest times,
when we feel the stones being rolled over our tombs,
that we are still seeds of Elohim's glory,
the darkness is just the soil,
and the stretching of our faith
is simply the spreading of our roots,
because in the image of Christ,
we are grapes pressed into wine
and one day we will find
that His breaking only produces
the best kind of juice.

I still doubt and question,
but God is still God,
and before the beginning of time,
He looked at me, still unformed, and said,
my son, this life will hurt (a lot)
but you best believe that I
am coming to save you
no matter what you do.

Dear family,
this tree is divine, but the harvest takes time
so please, don't give up on the fruit.

Photo by photo-nic.co.uk nic on Unsplash