romans road: everyone's asterisk
Romans 10:13 - “for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
God spoke on September 16, 2018.
Some of you have asked what it was like. Did God sound like an Allstate commercial booming in a tunnel? Did God speak in ALL CAPS? Did you float above yourself like Scrooge with a Christmas ghost? Was there glitter? Trumpets? Magic wind?
No. None of that.
Here’s the best way I can explain it:
You know those moments when you think of something and you’re like could this be me? And then no, it can’t be. I’m not that smart. And then you Google it to find out it’s a quote from Henry Thoreau? Kind of like that.
Imagine feeling a sound, not hearing it. Like when you tense before the glass crashes to the floor because you already know what’s coming. And then an energetic peace. Like the Beatles. A peace that releases you, that walks.
But before September 16, God wasn’t saying anything. I called out to a silent God for so long that the word everyone in Romans 10:13 started to look like this:
everyone*
*except me
When that definition scared me, my fear turned the word into this:
everyone*
*except them
Or even more slick:
everyone *
*that follows this doctrine
My restrictions on what it meant to call out to God and what it meant for God to save me put limitations on who really belongs in this everyone.
Call on the name of the Lord: After God spoke, he lead me into the wilderness. He told me to give up my job and apartment. I was terrified and desperate. I went to so many spiritual leaders, friends, and community members trying to understand what God was doing. They didn’t have any answers for my situation (at one point Brooke teased “I’m offended. God won’t even tell me about your life). I thought if I asked someone else to call out to God, that he would listen. Because everyone didn’t include me. The context of Romans 10:13 comes from Joel 2, when God says he will pour out his Spirit on everyone. God wanted to train me to trust my place in everyone. So I waited on God, and the spiritual leaders became partners of my personal prayers, not authors of them. God is willing and ready to pour out wisdom, discernment, and understanding on everyone, even me. Even you.
Shall be saved: I couldn’t figure out how losing my job and apartment was God’s way of saving me. I knew vaguely of salvation and eternity, but what about a bed? And before September 16, God was quiet. Where was this saving God I kept calling out to? Why did God come through for this other person and not me? What was it about me, about them? Why do some people call out to God for years and still feel so hopeless? These are questions I still can’t answer. But I think they’re real, and God hears them. We should hear them, too, and not be afraid to ask them. God has used this difficult season to restore me and return me to myself. I may be in a process, but it’s bringing me closer to understanding the beauty of being saved.
Part of rebuilding the Temple is rebuilding how I see. I’m so grateful that Jesus continues to remove everyone’s asterisks so that we may be one. And that was Jesus’s prayer when he walked on this earth. That we would be one (John 17:21).
everyone*
*especially me, especially them
You are fully and intimately a part of the everyone of God. And there is no level of spiritual bondage, no depth of mental illness, no past mistakes and shame, no deconstruction, no reconstruction, no personality, no character, no social class, no race, no identity, no harm you’ve caused, no harm you’ve endured, no number of years where God is silent that will ever change that. Not for you. Not for them.
So call out to God, whether it looks pretty or ugly, holy or profane, passionate or apathetic, call out. Being saved may not look the way we want it to right now, but God is rebuilding his Temple and redeeming everything, everyone. Your prayers are water drops filling a bowl. In due season, this bowl will overflow onto the ground you walk on.
Today, I partner with you in your personal calling out to God. And I loose the peace from heaven. A peace that releases you, that walks.
Be saved. Be loved.
Selah,
G