Clowns

 If given a choice between ice cream and a spanking, it’s a good bet the ice cream would win over by a wide margin. Sure, there might be one weird kid who wears black lipstick and eyeliner that thinks ice cream is evil and he deserves the spanking, but for the most part, it’ll be the ice cream.

Those who have crept into the household of faith and made merchandise of you aren’t doing anything more complicated than offering you the spiritualized version of ice cream, pretending the spanking isn’t even an option.

Ice cream’s great. I’m partial to rum raisin myself, but some pistachio or cookie dough hits the spot once in a while as well. The situation becomes problematic when knowing that we deserve a spanking, someone offers us ice cream, telling us that spankings were something only mean men in powdered wigs did once upon a time.

We are given license to live recklessly by clowns who don’t know enough of God’s word not to claim that they stood eye to eye with God after being teleported to heaven from a sitting position in a port-a-potty.

I mean, Moses, sure, he was a thing back then, got to see the back of God or whatever, but it’s 2022, and now it’s either face to face one on ones or nothing at all. Moses surely wasn’t as special as some random harpy who would have you believe she gave God a good talking down to because He dared to teleport her to heaven, interrupting her while having her ablutions.

Apparently, God needed advice. He needed to have a confab asap regarding the nations because all these delusional people need to be prophets to the nations, speaking to leaders, movers, shakers, and gingerbread makers.

Color me surprised when I discovered that the message to the nations had nothing to do with repentance or turning back to God but about how you, too, can achieve your full potential and get that work promotion you’ve been craving if you learn to unlock the secret chamber within the secret chamber that holds the wishing well of heaven.

If you can’t believe a lady that insists she rode a toilet to heaven, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you should check yourself o ye of little faith. It’s because you don’t believe that you’ll never receive what she promised you would, had you been one of the chosen who would amplify the message to the nations by your selfless giving!

If all you eat is ice cream, you’ll get a tummy ache. I repeat those exact words at least twice a week, but they’re to adolescent girls with a sweet tooth. Adults should know better. Adults shouldn’t need to be told that something that sounds like a fantasy novel dreamed up while tripping on mushrooms likely isn’t Biblical.

Between pet dinosaurs, enneagrams, third eyes, and teleporting toilets, there isn’t much oxygen left in the room for doctrine, discipleship, submission, or obedience.  I mean, given a choice between discipleship and pet dinosaurs, well, you know the rest of it.

There are consequences to the things we choose to believe. There are consequences to the things we choose to allow to take root in our hearts. We’ve done a good job of pretending as though it were not so. That’s how the Yolo generation was spawned. Now that generation has discovered that you Yolo in your twenties, you weep-o in your thirties, and you wail-o in your forties because you look like you’re pushing seventy from of all the Yoloing you did in your twenties.

Hebrews 12:7-8, If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.”

But ice cream, and pet dinosaurs, sunshine, and unicorns. You just don’t understand the love of God, man. That’s your problem! God’s not about all that chastening stuff; He just wants to love on you!

I love my girls, but sometimes correction is necessary. I love my girls, but sometimes they need to be disciplined. I don’t go around chastening and disciplining other people’s kids. I don’t walk the neighborhood with a sign around my neck stating that I will spank people’s kids for free; that would just be weird.

My kids, though, I disciple and correct because I love them, and I want the best for them in the moment and for the future, as far as that future might extend.

If God isn’t chastening you, it’s not because you’re perfect, you’re not, and you know you’re not. If He is not chastening you, it’s because you’re not His, and He doesn’t go around spanking other people’s kids.

I know, it hurts. Take a minute, breathe through your nose, deep breaths, there you go, then realize that you can still be His child. Not illegitimate, crossing your fingers hoping the paternity test goes your way, but truly His, yes, enduring chastening, but also assured of your inheritance.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.