Are These Kids or Oompa Loompas?

My friends Alonzo and Teri–newly-minted members of the landed gentry–just left with 4 of their 5 kids. About three weeks back, I helped move them into their first home, less than an hour away. They decided to drive up and see how I was doing.

Generally, when friends visit, I have to brace. In addition to cleaning up my house so I look much neater than I really am, I have to buy food. I usually have to cook. I have to do a lot of cleaning while my friends are here. This time, it was very different. My friends brought me food, and then their kids cleaned my house.

They brought fried chicken. I hope it’s okay for a white person to have fried chicken with black people. Maybe no one will find out.

The weather was somewhat cloudy, so the kids were not allowed in the pool. There was some concern about lightning. We had lunch by the pool, and afterward, Alonzo and Teri and I sat outside and talked. My goddaughter Gabriella asked for a broom. The next time I went in the house, it looked wonderful. I had it fairly clean before they arrived, but they took it to a new level.

It should be unbearable outside, but while we talked, the sun was buffered by clouds, and it was so cool, I didn’t even sweat. It should have been about 95 with harsh sun and high humidity. It seems like we always get unseasonal nice weather when we’re together. Alonzo said he had noticed a pattern. We get together when it’s cloudy, and then the sun comes out. It happened when I went to help them move. It’s hard to explain how odd it is, having pleasant weather in Central and Northern Florida at this time of year. It isn’t supposed to happen. Warm days in winter are common everywhere. Cool days in summer in Florida are freak events.

It’s relaxing, being in a house someone else cleaned up. I haven’t had this experience since the last time they visited. Before that, you have to go back to the last time I rented a hotel room.

I don’t know where they got these kids. They don’t whine. They don’t break things. They don’t fight. They don’t talk back. They’re very quiet. They clean people’s houses for fun. I told their parents they could leave them here.

I always say I was a good kid when I was young, but I wasn’t. I was awful. I just thought I was a good kid because I was comparing myself to liars, thieves, tantrum-throwers, crybabies, dopers, and bullies. I didn’t know any families that had good kids, so I didn’t know any good kids I could compare myself to.

I did just about nothing to get ready for the visit, apart from cleaning. I had to fell and cut up a big oak this week, and I didn’t really feel like shopping and cooking after working hard outdoors.

We had a great conversation. They talked about our friendship, which is now about 12 years old. They said it was strange.

They lived in a ghetto suburb in Miami, and they seemed about like everyone else there. Then God started changing them. They moved to better and better areas as he did his work. They moved to Orlando, and now they’re in a very rural town called Tavares, in a 5-bedroom house they own. They’re surrounded by conservatives, and they’re happy.

They talked about the things we’ve gone through together. They said it was strange to be so close to an old white man and so distant from old friends and their own relatives.

It is strange, but it’s what happens when people base their relationships on God’s word instead of blood and culture. God’s word says he divides families, but it also says he puts the solitary in families. He divides us from blood relations and friends who belong to Satan, and he puts us together with people who may look different yet listen to the same Holy Spirit.

All over the US, people are fighting to protect their segments of society. People of different ethnicities are clashing with each other. People with different religious beliefs fight. Men are against women, and women are against men. It’s because churches generally reject the Holy Spirit. He is the only unifier. Where he is allowed to work, Jews and former Muslim terrorists worship together. People intermarry. National identities become less important. Where he is silenced, people behave like team athletes, fighting anyone who wears the wrong shirt. If you’re on God’s team, you don’t define yourself by the skin you wear as a shirt in this world.

Is life supposed to be like this for everyone? Can life really be this good on this cursed earth? Can every person who is Holy-Spirit-led have nice kids, a supportive spouse, friends with whom they have no friction, financial success, and a peaceful home he owns?

Maybe life really can be this good, and we don’t know it because almost none of us try doing things God’s way.

I have often told my Christian friends I didn’t want anything to do with my own sister. Once a hard core addict reaches a certain age, behaves badly enough, and proves he or she will never change, you cut the cord. It doesn’t just happen with addicts. There are many people who are so unpleasant and stubborn they have to be cut off. Today Teri said she used to wonder why I was so mean about my sister. Now she understands. Her mother has a very dark heart. She is angry. She is controlling. She is very unpleasant to be around. Alonzo and Teri had to take her in for a while, and she made their home a miserable place. They finally had to make other arrangements for her, and she calls and threatens them over it. Teri says peace left their house while her mother was there, and it returned when she left. She understands that there are some people you have to remove from your life if you want to be blessed.

It’s not just individuals. There are cities and neighborhoods people have to cut off. Nations. Entire cultures. You can only do so much to turn others around, and then you have to move on. This is what the rapture is all about. We’re not going to succeed in changing the world, and the time to break with it is approaching.

It’s hard for me to believe the relationship I have with this family. I’m so used to worldly people who can’t listen and never change. It’s strange to be accepted and agreed with. I can’t imagine what it will be like to be in heaven, where there won’t be a single person who doesn’t appreciate me, agree with me, and get along with me. Imagine a world in which you never have to walk on eggs around anyone or debate anyone.

It’s hard to believe the rapture is coming, but then it must have been hard to believe when a virgin gave birth to a man and that man was killed, resurrected, and assumed into heaven. It must have been hard to believe when the ground swallowed Korach, when God parted the Red Sea and made the sand dry so the Hebrews could walk through, and when the fire of God came down for Elijah and ate two steers and the water in the trench that surrounded them. All these things did happen, and the rapture will happen, too.

It’s going to be wonderful. I feel like I’m getting a taste of it. The peace and victory will be overwhelming. The absence of obnoxious people and spirits will be more beautiful than anything I’ve experienced in this life.

Imagine a world with no election signs and no arguments. Imagine a world with no riots. Imagine a world where there are no preppers because there is never anything bad to prepare for. No illness. No crime. No failure. No lack. No taxes. No pain. No prisons.

Actually, there will be a prison. It’s called hell. The earth is a sorting facility.

Today while we talked about the peace and prosperity we’ve experienced during the coronavirus months, I said it was as though God had separated us into a corral to wait in peace for the rapture. It’s like he put us aside so we can be cleaned up and readied.

I would love to be gone before the election. Failing that, I would like to be gone before the inauguration.

I think Trump will win, and I think there will be a Satanic leftist tantrum that will fill city streets with furious left-wing racists. I think the current riots will seem feeble compared to what’s in store. I suspect that rioting will also ramp up before the election, driving fair-weather hobby socialists to drop the pose and vote for Trump in order to restore order. I wouldn’t be surprised. I think many, many people will vote for Trump and claim they voted for Biden.

The voting booth is like the confessional booth. Or Vegas.

I can’t help wondering what Earth would have been like had people listened to the Holy Spirit. I guess we’ll find out during the Messianic Age.