Romans 8:15

I feel like I should expound on the things I wrote yesterday.

I wrote about an extraordinarily vile cyst that appeared on my back. All physical ailments come from sin, whether it’s the sin of the person afflicted or the general curse on the world that comes from sin. There is no possibility of illness in heaven, because everyone there is forgiven and purified. I don’t consider it self-condemnation when I say I believe my physical problems are often related to my sins, and that the nature of the problems may tell me about the type of sin that led to their appearance.

A cyst has certain characteristics. It’s a container made of tissue. It’s walled off from the rest of the body. Cysts are full of things that need to be extracted. A cyst may be very stubborn. It may have a sort of opening with a layer of tissue over it that acts as a barrier that prevents the crap inside from being removed. Cysts protect their disgusting contents.

I know demons work in me. We are surrounded by demons in this world, and they whisper to us and prod us, just as God does. They work to modify our acts, thoughts, and emotions.

From past experience, I know that a demon can occupy space inside a person. I had some things cast out of me, and I can tell you I felt them in my abdomen, below the rib cage. I felt their presence there when they became afraid. They became cold. My hands turned cold.

Remember the scene in the first Alien movie, where the creature burst John Hurt’s chest wall and ran off? That’s what it’s like when a demon gets upset. I suppose you could compare it to feeling a baby kicking.

Night before last, I woke up while it was still dark, and I felt a lot of tension inside me. I had been battling anger and cruelty, to get rid of them, and when I woke up, I felt like a battle was going on in and around me.

I felt like a cyst that didn’t want to pop. Like there was only a thin wall between me and a breakthrough followed by peace.

Eventually, I felt some things leave me.

There are also barriers between us and good things. The flesh is a barrier between us and God. The veil in the Temple symbolized the flesh.

Here’s what happens when a spirit leaves me. Suddenly, my mind grows quiet. Usually, I have a nonstop flow of thoughts and words in my head. When something leaves me, it shuts down instantly, and I literally don’t know what to think. I sit and wait for the next thought.

Naturally, this brings peace, because peace is destroyed by thoughts. When you stop thinking, it’s like a fire has gone out.

I told God I had no idea who I was. If I ever get subsantially purified, I will be a person I don’t recognize from the inside. I don’t know what my personality would be like without the corruption and supernatural chatter. I think of the things that go on inside me as parts of me, but many of them are not, so what am I really like?

Secular thinkers tell us to embrace all the garbage inside us. Whatever it is, own it, say it’s natural, and refuse to condemn it. Homosexuality, lust…whatever it is, accept it. That’s not realism or healing. It’s defeat. It’s capitulation. It reminds me of the cessationist doctrine that poisons the body of Christ. “We can’t get miracles or prophecy, so we conclude they don’t exist any more.” Secular people can’t rid themselves of inner problems, so they tell us to love them.

That’s not for me. I’ve had divine deliverance, so I will never stop trying to get more of it. It’s extremely unfortunate that so many people can’t get help, but I’ve received it, and I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t happen. I’m not capitulating, ever. I will never stop trying to get free, because I know God is willing to make it happen.

Why doesn’t God do it right now, completely? That’s what people will ask. God isn’t my butler. He’s not my slave. His chief purpose in the universe isn’t to rush to my side whenever I suffer a little and take the problem away regardless of my attitude and my past. Sometimes he permits suffering to last a while, for reasons of his own. Usually, though, my own iniquity delays his help.

God isn’t a genie. The word “genie” comes from the Arabic “djinn,” which means “demon.” If you want a spirit that gives you whatever you want, whether or not you’re ready, get yourself a demon. You could be the next Tom Cruise.

I’m not going to blame God for anything. That’s a poisonous attitude. Anything he does for me is a gift. He’s not paying a debt or earning a wage. He doesn’t owe me. If he had put me in hell instead of saving me, no one in the universe could say it wasn’t fair and good.

A lot of people refuse to believe in God because he won’t be their slave. “If God is so good, why didn’t I make the cheerleading squad?” “If God is so good, why is my neighbor’s BMW better than mine?” I know a lot of people complain about more serious problems, like death and illness, but many of us are angry at God because he doesn’t fix our petty, disgraceful first-world gripes. We’re not grateful for anything. There are healthy young people who wake up in big houses in the United States of America and feel angry at God because things aren’t even nicer.

I used to be that way. These days I thank God when I get in the car. Have you ever thought about what a blessing it is to have a car? A little over a hundred years ago, you were very lucky to have an open carriage and a horse. That’s how it was for centuries. I can get into a car whenever I want, drive at 100 miles per hour if I don’t get caught, listen to a huge selection of the greatest musicians of the last century, and enjoy whatever air temperature suits me. I can flick a switch and heat or cool the seats. In 1875, this would have been beyond the dreams of sorcerers.

Cars are fantastic. Even crummy ones. Air conditioning is fantastic. Good food is fantastic. Hot water is fantastic. I have machines that wash clothes and dishes while I watch TV (which is fantastic). Have you ever washed a shirt by hand? It’s a nightmare. Think how many shirts you use in a week.

I can see. My back is straight and strong. My feet don’t hurt. I’m not bald. I live in the greatest country the world has ever known. I live in one of the best areas of that country. I know God personally. I don’t have to look at prices when I go to the grocery store. I can buy blueberries in the winter. I have a personal library that would have made Plato faint. By historical standards, I live better than most emperors. Croesus would cry if he could see how I live.

Anyway, the fact that God hasn’t fixed me instantly is the dumbest conceivable argument for atheism and cessationism. His own book doesn’t say he’ll make our lives perfect in a heartbeat.

I believe I’m the focus of a battle right now, more than ever. The things that have run me know their final eviction is close, so they’re raging and fussing. I just have to keep confessing and repenting. They have no chance of success.

I’m so glad I’ve cut back on reading the news. I need to cut back more. My need to know what’s going on is nothing compared to my need to be close to God. The news is a source of temptation. It tempts me to anger and even lust. These days, when you look at a news site, there’s a good chance you’ll see at least one semi-pornographic photo with a link below it. “Kim Kardashian was naked again today.” Wow. Thanks for keeping me in the loop, “JOURNALISTS.”

Bad things are happening in the world. Got it. But I don’t run the world all by myself. I’m not actually required to obsess on the news and pray about every article. God told me I’m “one of many.” I’m busy with something important, so if Christians have to read the news, let the others handle it for a while.

They can keep track of all the important updates from the Kardashians and Chrissy Teigen.

I can’t wait to live in a world where there are no people like that.

To change course, I got another revelation today. God showed me how I differ from most men. I have never, ever known what it was like to want a father.

When I was a kid, I was scared of my dad. When he entered a room, my sister and I tried to leave before trouble started. When he talked to us, we tried to say whatever would 1) prevent him from blowing up and 2) get us excused from his presence. I was always looking for ways to avoid being around him.

When he wasn’t around, my mother, my sister and I would talk about divorce. It’s terrible to say it, but we talked about how great our lives would be if she divorced him. My sister and I encouraged her. Once, when my sister was about three, she held a gun to my dad’s side and told my mother, “We don’t need him.” She wanted permission to shoot.

I’m not writing this to pick on my dad. I’m just sharing what has been going through my mind.

I think I had a bad attitude toward male authority figures, because I was scared of them. I remember two men who didn’t fit the pattern, though. Mr. Hubert, my fifth-grade science teacher, and Mr. Stallings, my eighth-grade English teacher.

I had never had a male teacher before Mr. Hubert. He made me prefer male teachers. He was great. He had all sorts of science stuff going on in the room. He rigged up a desk microphone and PA system to talk to us, even though he was five feet away. He had fish. He had live guinea pigs (donated by me) in a tank. He was gentle and fun to be around.

Oliver “Butch” Stallings. He hated that nickname, so of course, people used it behind his back all the time. Stallings was a 6’4″ blond Aryan who looked like a Calvin Klein model. He was a tyrant. We always had homework. If you didn’t do your homework, you had to write a note to your parents, make them sign it, and bring it back. He didn’t take any crap from anyone. He worked us. People said they hated him, but I don’t think they did. I thought he was great. He made us succeed. Female teachers never did that. They used guilt trips and cajoling, but they didn’t provide order.

Sometimes we loved our female teachers, but they accomplished very little compared to the men. It’s that simple.

Stallings could be a little jerky, but all of his demands served a purpose, and that purpose was to improve us.

Not all of my male teachers were positive role models. My seventh-grade math teacher, Mr. Bubrick, told me he was going to break my arm if I reached under my desk for a piece of paper. I think it was paper. Might have been a pencil. He said, “I don’t care who your father is.” He said he was completely serious. Not sure what that was about. And I believed him, so I don’t understand why he kept trying to convince me.

It wasn’t really necessary to threaten to cripple me. He could have said, “Don’t reach for that,” and I would have complied. I guess he was mentally ill.

We were supposed to write something down. Maybe he was giving us a quiz. I don’t recall, but I assume I failed, because you have to have a pencil and paper in order to write.

On the whole, Mr. Bubrick was not a very good teacher. I’m not sure which careers are best for sadists who threaten to break other people’s children’s bones.

Whatever my positive experiences with men were, I never had any desire for a father figure in my life. I wanted father figures to leave me alone. I didn’t like being cursed at. I didn’t like watching violence that couldn’t be defended against. I didn’t like the burden of racking my brain, trying to think of the right things to say to turn off the rage.

It’s tough dealing with abusive people. Sometimes you can postpone the abuse by saying or doing the right thing, but sometimes they’re determined to abuse, and nothing you can do will stop it, so you end up feeling helpless and unable to control your circumstances. It breeds passivity. You quit trying to fix things you can’t fix, and you focus on learning how to endure them. “Is it over now? No, he’s still going. I’ll hold on a little longer.”

It makes you feel like your face is a pair of wooden shutters you can lock up while a hurricane rages outside. It’s very strange. You lock them up and hope the wind doesn’t blow a tree into them. It’s the best you can do. You can’t control anything outside of you, so you retreat and control a reduced perimeter: your face.

I was talking to God today, and I told him I really wanted a father. At my advanced age, I was asking for one. I have never had a father. The lack of a father wrecked my life. I didn’t have a father to correct me, guide me, supply me adequately, or protect me, and I am damaged. Now I want a father to come in and undo the damage. I want the evil in my heart to be fixed. The fatherless tend to be insolent punks. I don’t want to be an embarrassing middle-aged punk, like Jimmy Kimmel or Sean Penn. I want to be told what to do, by someone who has my best interest at heart.

Churches have tried to teach me God primarily wants me to obey rules. Some churches have taught me God just wants me to give preachers money. It’s unusual for a church to teach people the truth: God wants children. A father knows his children personally, unless he’s a deadbeat dad. He works to raise them. He gives them advice and corrects them. He fights their enemies. He gives them wealth and the ability to get more wealth. He doesn’t sit on a cloud a trillion miles away and ignore them.

The Bible orders us to love God. How can you love someone who is completely uninvolved with you? It’s like telling you to love Prince Charles or Vladimir Putin. Strangers you’ve never been anywhere near.

It’s not enough for God to help me and correct me. I need him to be personally involved, out of love. I need him to exert authority over me very directly.

I can’t tell you how strange it is to want to be adopted and to have a father. It’s like waking up one day and wanting to eat liver (which I hate). I have never really wanted these things before. I have been 100% devoid of empathy for kids who wanted fathers. I could feel sorry for them, but I could not feel what they felt, because I had never felt it.

Sympathy isn’t empathy.

In my heart, I have never had the feeling that anyone wanted me as a son. Not men, I mean. My mother was crazy about me.

This experience makes me wonder just how damaged and abnormal I am. Like Yossarian said, you can’t see the flies in your eyes if you have flies in your eyes.

The natural male response to problems is to say, “I’m okay. Everything is fine.” This is why it’s better to rely on men than women in a crisis. Most women like crying, becoming hysterical, and magnifying their problems. They tend to make a crisis much worse. It’s manipulation. It’s their way of getting other people to take care of them. Men stop thinking about their problems so they can function and get things done.

It’s a carnal approach. It’s something we do because we don’t know how to get God’s help. It eventually shuts off our awareness of our problems. We become numb to them. I wonder how many crippling injuries I have that I’m unaware of. I know God now, so I can get help. I don’t have to shut down the alarms and go to backup systems.

I felt I should write about these things. Preachers have done their best to poison me and keep me ignorant, and they have done the same things to everyone else, so if I benefit from knowing the truth, presumably other people will benefit, too.

I am starting to hate churches. I don’t mean I want to go shoot them up, so please don’t come and take my guns just yet. I mean I have lost patience with them, and I find the idea of being overly attached to one distasteful. It would be like marrying an annoying, hysterical woman who runs her mouth all the time and doesn’t listen. That’s how it was before, now that I think about it. A lot of good things happened at my churches, but stubbornness, pride, and emotionalism stunted everyone. I know a lot of spiritual midgets.

My churches were matriarchal. Trinity was 80% black, and New Dawn was mostly Puerto Rican. Blacks and Latins have matriarchal societies. It’s unhealthy. Matriarchy fosters denial, emotionalism, and immaturity.

I’ll keep you updated on future developments. Hope you’re not too bored.