No More Tolerance

When I started using the reading plans on my Iphone's Bible app, it was because I was trying to re-introduce some sort of regularity and discipline to my time in scripture.  I wanted to be able to say at the end of the day that I was regularly reading scripture, because that's what "good christians" do.


I didn't expect those couple of chapters a day to become a fixture of the way I start my morning, usually on public transit, and honestly, though I know it's God's word, I really wasn't expecting God to speak.  But He does.  Almost every morning, if I'm willing to listen.


Yesterday I read this:


2 Corinthians 11:20 (The Message)

"You have such admirable tolerance for impostors who rob your freedom, rip you off, steal you blind, put you down—even slap your face!"

And I'm thinking about how this year of deconstruction has been teaching me about impostors.  About the people and things, (spiritual or physical) that rob my freedom, my peace and my joy.


I think I'm learning that I have a say in this whole process.  That, as Paul was reminding the Corinthians, sometimes I tolerate those impostors - the lies that come to steal, kill and destroy.  I give them free reign to hurt me, to slap my face.

I've spent a lot of time this year working at recovering.  It's seemed that every time I've begun to pick up the pieces, another part of my life has shattered.  The deconstruction has continued and continues.  Two more blows have come this last week.  And there are more pieces to sort out, and either discard or piece together again.  And the pieces that have shattered carry with them the certainty of more shattering to come.  Not possibility, but certainty.

But, I do get to choose whether or not I'm going to tolerate the impostors.  The lies that come in force with each moment of shattering.  I'm learning that I've tolerated far too much.  Sometimes, now, the recovery comes more quickly.  I'm thankful to have found myself amidst a group of friends who I can count on to speak truth, and point out the impostors when I can't see them.  Friends who speak directly, and with much love, telling me which things are lies.

So, going forward, the goal is no more tolerance.  No more letting the impostors hang out and steal my freedom.  That's the goal anyway.  And I pray in the midst of less tolerance, I will slowly collect the old pieces and find new ones.  That healing and life and wholeness will come in ways I can only long for and imagine.