I've got the big picture now. I've immersed myself in getting the big picture for some years. And I think I've got it. Not got it, but, you know, I get it.

It's about God's plan to save the world, not just me.

I get it.

I'm not to sit back content with my ticket to heaven. This is a missional thing. Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Life after life after death.

I get it.

Unity. No finger-pointing. Its not an us-versus-them thing. We're all in this together. One family. One humanity. One church. One love.

I get it. I get it.

And there was a very real, very important reason why I needed to get it. Not getting it was destroying my new-found, fledgling faith. It couldn't have been all about me. It couldn't have been all about how I could get to heaven. It just couldn't. None of it made sense if that's what it was all about.

It had to be something else. Something altogether different.

Well...

It's not. It's not black or white. I'm starting to get it.

Black-or-white battle lines are not uncommon. Human beings, when faced with a threat to a dearly-held belief system, will reach instinctively for, and embrace, the polar opposite of that threat in order to protect the threatened belief. And inasmuch the truth sometimes falls somewhere in between, or usually on a different plane entirely, the truth becomes marginalized, if not utterly silenced. I don’t really think the original line-drawers ordinarily believe in their polarized position. I think it’s usually a strategy consideration—like a plaintiff’s attorney claiming that his client’s case is worth $10,000,000 battling a defense attorney who claims the case is worth $0. Both are aware that an eventual verdict or settlement will likely fall somewhere in between, and both want that final figure to fall as close to their original, extreme position as possible.

And therein lies the problem. For me, anyway.

I needed to see the big picture.

So I ran away from the personal message. Far away. If the big-picture was right, then the individualized picture was wrong. Neat and tidy. Black and white.

I harmed myself, my community and my purpose immensely in that running away.

Yeah, yeah...we find the personal message within the big picture. Within God's love and salvific justice for the whole world, there is room for every man, woman and child.

Don't blame the message. The message always was holistic, enough to include me within it. But that's not really how I wanted to hear it.

And for good reason. A very real, very important reason.

If the message was polarized at the global/cosmic/human-kind level, then I could hide beneath its shadow. I could drown my unholiness underneath the massive expanse of God's grace.

And I did.

Then, quite recently, I heard God: "Raffi, where are you?"

It was devastating. I couldn't say "Here I stand." I couldn't say anything.

I didn't have "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." I had stopped asking for Jesus to "just come into my heart."

I'm gonna be working on that, on standing, on holiness, on the "God loves me" thing.

I cannot do otherwise (HT: Marty).

Please pray for me.

Grace and Peace,

Raffi