Week 6 - Hell's Bells Is Stupid. I'm Stupid. JESUS! Little help.....

Getting on the ski lift at Bear Valley,  the lift op was blasting Hells Bells.  

For a moment, I think I felt the sad, bewilderment of FA.  I heard the hollow, ritual ringing and thought man what would I do if some bad evil dude was coming after me to take me to that place?  

I’d pluck him with a snow ball, maybe gouge a ghoulish eye with my ski pole.  For in that moment of attack I think I’d feel like a “desperate person facing a desperate situation” who needed to “react as every action must have its source from me and my environment.”

I don’t know how to put this, but then I felt a sense of peace (AND PATIENCE – LONG LIFT LINE)…. Re do …. Then I felt a sense of peace as the words “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” rang through me head with every peal of the bell (in the Hells Bells song."   

I asked these “peace filled” questions, “so am I trapped in hell and the gates can’t keep me there?” – that was a mildly satisfying thought.  

BUT MORE SATISFYING (not saying this is right or wrong, correct or incorrect) but FAR FAR MORE SATISFYING was the brief thought, “so I’m outside of hell and I've been invited to enter hell by Jesus and although it’s the last thing the enemy wants his ghoulish gates shall not prevail against Christ’s invasion.” 

I wondered why I was spinning so many (for me at least) inspiring thoughts about an old ridiculously vile ACDC Song UNTIL…… I listened to FA tonight.

Nothing can separate us from the Love of God and nothing can thwart or de-rail His Kingdom Come. 

Nothing Can Separate -- That was the hope I felt in the lift line.  Note: I also felt in the lift line that Hells Bells for the Christian is a theologically ridiculous song because the bad prince would never want us there in the first place, soooooo, duh? why would he be calling for us!?!  Silly....

Nothing Can Separate -- That was the hope  I felt when I contemplated the many times and ways I write another Genesis 3 and Genesis 16 “Fall” story with my inept floundering as an FA poster boy. 

On a side note -- I kept hearing these words in my head  throughout the sermon. (I'm hearing things a lot these days... maybe I should have that checked..... ANYWAY ... SIDE NOTE -- Stuff that I heard throughout the message ....

1. “WILD DONKEY” – sorry but that phrase.  Just sticks to my brain.
2. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
3. Faith with Christ is not mastering a subject but bearing witness to a pulsating, dynamic, mystery.
4. “It would be easier to capture a hurricane in shrimp net than it would be to adequately express the furious, relentless love of God.” –  Paraphrase of a Brennan Manning message I heard dozens of years ago.