Each morning I reboot my body. There is a window of about three hours where I'm not exhausted, and in that time, my spirit soars like an eagle. I rejoice daily for the toil our species has faced since Eden, because as difficult as I am to deal with, I am 100x worse when I am not exhausted. Of course, people of equally peculiar inclination would invert that sentence and its value judgments, but those people are very rare, indeed. If you think what I say in videos or on this blog or in my books is hard to handle, you should rejoice that I get up so early and wear myself out before I interact with other humans.
One of the things I do each morning is stand in the billowing waves of all the thoughts that came to me the day before that were too subtle (or I was too tired, or just not fast enough) to capture on paper (or in 1's and 0's). They come again, aggregated by the spirit of God, and I type as fast as my fingers can fly to instantiate into reality what previously only existed in spirit. It goes into the hopper to become sausage at some later date, sometimes stringing together 20 or more separate and previously unrelated segments carefully gathered over years and years.
As I was doing this this morning, the thought came to me "oh, the places your mind will go!" I remembered that there is a Dr. Seuss book called "Oh the places you'll go!" I'm not sure if it has been cancelled yet. Give it time.
From an Amazon review, we read: "The unashamed optimism leaps out from almost every page as the story follows a little boy in a yellow onesie on his journey through many weird and brightly-coloured places."
That's a nice thought.
Did you know that there are many plain and precious parts of the full gospel of Christ that were taken out of Judaism and Christianity, but are still mostly intact in other myths, legends, and religions? All of these things need to be taken with a grain of salt, using the same advice God gave on the apocrypha. I will furthermore say that I can't imagine there is any value in trying to comb through them without first repenting of all your sins. How can you expect the eyes of the Holy Ghost otherwise? However, from a top-down perspective (that is, first coming to know God, then looking at the evidence of him), you would be downright shocked at how many truth fragments are lying all over the place in plain sight.
"A journey through many weird and brightly-colored places" reminds me of the Norse rainbow bridge. There is a lot of truth in that one. The bridge between heaven and earth is, in fact, a rainbow bridge, though it looks and operates a lot different than you'd think operating from that statement alone.
It turns out that the bridge leads you in straight path toward God. But not just to his presence. The further mankind has drifted (or fled, in some cases) from those who actually have firsthand experience with God, the more we have created, corrupted, and calcified ideas related to him.
The truth is you can't draw nearer to his presence without also becoming more like how he is. These things are inseparably coupled. You can't do the one without the other, and if you think you've managed to, you don't have what you think you have.
The rainbow is the symbol of how God is--his attributes. It is not like a flag in the sense that it is not a thing you can hand to someone. Yet it is like a flag in terms of an ensign--something that someone can show you to initiate, advance, or expedite a process. That process is the process of becoming more like God.
If the yellow-onesied boy were on the real rainbow journey, he would not be able to continue very long in the garment he began with. He would first need to clean his garment in the blood of Christ. And then, after subsequent progress on the rainbow bridge, he would need a new garment altogether. One that was created in a different place, and brought to him by someone who had already been there.
As the boy progressed along the bridge, further toward God, he would necessarily have to move further away from everything and everyone who did not move with him. Even still, whatever person came with him (through improving along with him) or thing came with him (through being revealed to be better than previously thought) would not seem the same as it was, anyway. Although, strangely, whatever made the journey would seem much more familiar in its new state than it ever did before.
You can't hold onto two things that are different for very long. All good unifies in God. He is the source, the fullness, and the epitome of all good. As you draw nearer to him, everything squeezes together. And everything that doesn't fit must go.
Unfortunately, most people--even most people that read these ramblings--hold onto the false idea that things that don't align with God can be held to while approaching closer to God. This is ironic, because this idea itself is one of the many things that must be parted with.
As you draw near to God, you get split again and again and again. What before seemed one becomes two or more, and only one of the set (or none) can continue. Simultaneously, at each split, God provides something new. Thus, like a bone becoming a fossil, everything you have and are is incrementally replaced with something more enduring and valuable than what was there before--something more like God.
Life is not like the racist joke that any kid growing up in the 80s still has memorized:
Me Chinese, me play joke, me go pee pee in your Coke
Me American, me so smart, me no drink the pee pee part.
If someone pees in your coke, and you drink it, you just drank pee. Stop pretending that the "normal" things that you do aren't harming you and those you love. Stop pretending that you can drink deeply of the wine of Babylon without drinking the part that makes you drunk.
15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1, NKJV)
No amount of less-than-your-best can dwell in God's presence, and any enduring less-than-your-best is an obstacle that will continuously prevent you from drawing nearer to him.
This has implications that span every aspect of your life. It applies to how you eat, sleep, play, work, love, live, and die. It applies to the school, friend, and recreational choices you make for your kids.
If there is anything in your life that does not align with what you believe God would do in your place, fix it. Fix it today. If it's too big to fix in a day, decide what measurable progress you will make today. Do something--anything--right this second to move the needle, even a little bit.
Accept his invitation to come up higher by setting aside what belongs below. Ascend up the rainbow bridge. Everything better than what you are and what you have lies beyond who you presently are. Come and feast upon his bounty of betterment. Come and see, and partake, and be stuffed to the gills with his goodness.