Posts tagged with “A Sovereign God”

Playlists.

I often let the AI overlords generate my playlists, just to see what new stuff pops up. It took an interesting turn tonight.

  1. Chevelle - Remember When
  2. Chevelle - Comfortable Liar
  3. Tremonti - Flying Monkeys
  4. A Perfect Circle - Magdalena
  5. Killswitch Engage - In Due Time
  6. Demon Hunter - Time Only Takes
  7. Tool - Jambi
  8. Deftones - Diamond Eyes
  9. Creed - My Own Prison
  10. Chevelle - Forfeit
  11. Smashing Pumpkins - Mayonaise
  12. Seether - Broken (feat. Amy Lee)
  13. Metallica - Hero of the Day
  14. Chevelle - Until You're Reformed
  15. Rammstein - Sonne
  16. Killswitch Engage - My Curse

After that, I was finished with my work. I'm sure most people don't put much stock in these sorts of things, yet there's somewhat of a theme even though I only seeded it with Chevelle. Being a Reformed Baptist, I'm well aware that there's a spiritual war going on where we cannot see; so I always ponder... what's actually affecting the generation of the playlists? On one hand, you have God, who is sovereign, and His will is done on earth; but then, you also have the machinations of the enemy, made to deceive and frustrate. Discussions about God permitting calamity aside, I often wonder about what is signal vs. noise.


Decisions

Something has been bugging my conscience as of late.

I had a visitation with my daughter at the end of May. For context, in order to be peaceful, I agreed to graduating visitation, so this was supervised.

The person supervising, either through poor judgement or poor counsel, thought that they were going to be deceptive with something. What they may not realize is that the spidey senses are a touch more perceptive these days. I recognized the anomaly within about ten seconds. I stay frosty. I said nothing.

They started out by lying about separate personnel issues. I knew it was a lie but said nothing. But then, they took the deception up to eleven by saying, "sorry sir." I still said nothing.

I finished my visitation, which was wonderful, seeing the smile on my daughter's face. I stayed peaceful, for her sake. I even reiterated my objectives about my daughter moving forward, so that people could be reminded that I want God's best for her in a crappy situation.

None of this escaped my perception. My daughter was taught, passively, that lies and deception are permissible.

That was not okay. And it did not escape God's perception either. Yet I will stay peaceful, and forgive yet another transgression. It's just more work for me to do by His grace.

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)


Return to Sender

I don't think that you have any insight whatsoever into your capacity for good until you have some well-developed insight into your capacity for evil. ― Jordan B. Peterson

Origins

This is going to sound much more harsh than it should. That's unfortunately how text-only strips the context from things.

I think Rick Thomas will be a piece of the puzzle in helping you fix your worldview
I'm not sure how that's going to fit, but he has clarity in ways that I don't think I've seen before
Regrets I don't want: https://rickthomas.net/three-life-choices-you-dont-want-to-miss-before-you-die/

I couldn't see it before. All glory to God, now I can. Reading his articles and listening to his podcasts is like listening to a wholly new and completely different thing. It's actually amazing.

I really wish you would re-read that now.


Several years ago, I had an interesting interaction with you when you came to visit me at work. I know well the perception you maintain; it's been seared upon my memory just as many other interesting interactions have.

Do you know what it looked like from my perspective?

I'm sitting within six feet of another female. There's no one else in the open area - the unit secretary is off somewhere and everyone else is in patient rooms. I already have an unhealthy fear of you and your nearly pathological dominant personality. The first thing that jumps into my brain the moment I see you is just that - I am in a room, somewhat alone, near another female, in the dark since it's night shift and the lights have been turned down. My brain had an automatic, "oh shit, this looks bad" moment.

You remember what you did with that?

You went and found that nurse, found out where she lived, and looked up God knows what else about her. You practically stalked her. If this had been a single anomalous occurrence, it wouldn't really register. But you did the same to me. And who knows who else. Looking for trouble where no trouble existed. Please don't act like you weren't; it's unbecoming. Your worldview informed your actions.

We married damaged goods. The fall of Adam hurt our spouses. Poor decision-making and other people also damaged them. One of the most important calls of a spouse’s life is cooperating with the Lord in the ongoing restoration of the person they married.
Eternal Questions: How are you cooperating with the Lord in restoring your spouse and children?
-- lifeovercoffee

There's no pleasure in the collapse of a marriage that I made the same bow[sic] to maintain as you did.
There is no pleasure in starting over at age 37, especially with a young child.
And there's absolutely no pleasure and being right about all the wrong things.
--you

I really wish you would re-read that article. Your entire premise is, I think, built on a lie.

Truth in Love

You led me to believe you were pursuing your NP degree because you wanted to continue on the next step of your career. It wasn't until the mask fell off that you admitted that it was part of your exit strategy for a marriage you found too difficult to cope with and thus your familial demons took over, whispering proverbial murder in your ear.

Do you have any idea why God would impress upon me to warn you about your condition?

Perhaps it was because for the past 8 years your trajectory has been going the wrong way. Perhaps it was because you began citing secular sources above scriptural. Perhaps it's because you decided to ignore everything God says about things, thinking you were saving yourself. I don't know what it looks like from your perspective because you regularly deflected when the subject turned to you. Given God's restoration of my faculties, it's now fairly clear to me why. If you can't see it, and no one else has the cojones to confront you with it -- no wonder you refuse to speak to me.

There's no pleasure in me pointing this out to you.

There's no pleasure in rehashing things that obviously cause you great consternation.

There's no pleasure in being the one God sends to give a message.

Stop with that comparison to prophets nonsense. I am not any such thing. I am a wretch, that God dragged through rock bottom for two years, then lifted back out. What you didn't account for is that He'd raise up the very person you dumped on the curb like trash to warn you of your trajectory, so you feel comfortable in ignoring it and rejecting it. Whatever, not my problem.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to try.

Irony

I find it strangely fitting that you were going through a DNP program with a world-renowned professor on trauma and you did not seem to notice (or at least, you did nothing that showed evidence that you noticed) that the man God gave you was being beaten down by seeing COVID patients die daily in the ICU. Cracking ribs on code blue after code blue. Holding the hands of the dying as care was withdrawn, because patient family was stuck watching their loved ones' last breaths on a bloody Zoom call.

You think that would screw with a person a little bit, perhaps? You've seen enough in the ER to know the answer to that. Imagine people dying on you (at one point during the pandemic) on every shift. Every. Shift. And then, when the woman God gave you finally pulls the trigger, mercifully, God gives you a patient whose daughter is the same name and age as yours. No, I didn't confide any of this to you while we were together. By that time, the fear of you had completely overtaken.

I don't take pleasure in sounding harsh.

I don't take pleasure in having to say these things.

I don't take pleasure in being the scapegoat.

What I care about is our daughter's future, her soul, and yours too. Because like it or not, we're both bound inextricably through the daughter that we have to prepare for the future that she is going to have to live in. I wish we both hadn't been so retarded, then perhaps she could've had some brothers for protection too.

Se la vie.