Sitting and listening
The show was another Netflix tv series about a depraved couple and every person who associated with them. The song that went with the show even talked about the people all being criminals.
Each person had made mistakes by doing something immoral or illegal or even criminal. Filly thought it was interesting that the obvious use of drugs preceded the wrong behaviors. But the show made the drugs look cool. Acceptable. Even necessary.
The dad smoked weed. The family drank constantly. The mother took pharmaceuticals. And then they proceeded to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill. You know, like criminals. Like the song at the beginning of the show where they are all “dancing”.
Filly already knew that even though dancing itself was innocent, the slang meaning was not so innocent. The show beginning where everyone was “dancing” meant that everyone in the show was gonna be called out or “tagged” with that “not so innocent” meaning. Oh wait, Tag was the name of the main character… perhaps trying to make him analogous to the devil.
But unlike the “fiction” characters in the TV series, Filly had never drank much at all and never wanted to use drugs. Maybe that was why when she, personally got “tagged” in real life she was able to escape? Filly thought about how even arch angels got pulled into the pit. Apparently no one escaped the temptation to be sucked down into doing evil or immoral things.
But she was able to escape the quagmire that was like quicksand for all the people in the show. How was she able to see her own wrong choices and be able to make positive changes and avoid the pit? How did she heal? How did she turn things around for herself?
Filly thought about Jesus on the cross and about the two criminals…one on either side of him. One of them also turned his life around… and he was not good he was a criminal.
She wondered how some people get persecuted even when they are innocent, like Jesus was, though most are actually criminals. And maybe Jesus was on the cross beside people, even criminals, could experience healing from the consequences of their actions…if they chose to.
Was that why Jesus allowed himself to be there? To continue to be of service to humanity even up until the bitter end? The criminal did not turn things around for himself, Jesus turned things around for him when he asked Jesus for help. Filly realized to experience healing and escape from evil, a person has to radically rely on God.
Filly had experienced healing just like the criminal on one side of Jesus who asked Jesus to forgive him. Jesus loved the sinners but not the sin. Filly had to see the difference.
She suddenly realized that the suffering she had endured was to help her let go of a wrong dependency. And loving someone, like the way Jesus did of the criminal, was not a romantic love. It was a different kind of love. It was a selfless but powerful desire to express a reliance on Good…on God. And Filly had to experience loss, and suffering to arrive at that understanding. God loved her enough to not leave her there, stuck in the pit. Suffering made her wake up.
Only God can really satisfy human needs. Not drugs. Not other people. Not money. Not power. If people got everything they needed when they were in the pit then how would they ever escape its choke hold.
They probably would not. Filly was able to crawl out of the pit, but it took time and prayer and trusting God, and reading bible verses. She had a habit of prayer developed in childhood. When she was making bad decisions, her family distanced themselves but she still kept praying.
The distance caused Filly suffering. They told her to change. Then they stepped back. Filly was grateful that they never accepted that evil had to happen in order for her to be happy. They told her the truth…that the only way to happiness was by trusting God.
One family member stayed closer to Filly than most, but not because she agreed with Filly but because she somehow was able to not be influenced by evil. That family member had recently experienced great loss as well. In the form of money. Suffering helps even good people, put their lives in perspective.
Filly thought of herself as a good person. She began to see that suffering had not been a punishment, it was what allowed her to turn back completely to God. Before that perhaps she had kept God on the back burner. To experience healing of evil choices and consequences, it was not easy to depend on God.
She had gotten angry. Thrown her computer. Landed in Jail overnight. Suffered even more. She had tried to bargain with God. Make SOME changes but not others. she had experienced financial and relationship loss. More suffering. The good she had thought she experienced when she got tagged, was only superficial. It was not permanent.
Permanent good depends on consistently good behavior. People who were suffering needed to ask themselves this question…were they dependent on having things that came from doing evil? OR did they rely on good in order to get all the things they wanted. Relying on good things required patience, discipline, and consistency.
Filly thought about the example of how many people wanted to lose weight. But many people did not employ balance or moderation or self discipline in their lifestyle or eating choices. They relied on a weight loss pill, or radical fasting, or regimented eating. These choices represented allowing one self to get Tagged.
If someone made the wrong choice, they became slaves to food and drugs. Depending on something that goes in the mouth to lose weight was an oxymoron way of thinking. Filly realized that effective weight loss did not require something that did, or did not go in the mouth… it came about with a change in thinking.
She recognized that with her dependence on God, she could easily see an imbalance in her food choices that had given sugar (another addictive substance) a wrong priority.
Moderation happened when she stopped letting sugar have the platform. Because sugar, she realized just made her eat more. It never satisfied. That was how evil worked. Evil pretends to satisfy, but a few years down the road, a person will be surprised to see (with the sugar example) that they had become fat, unhappy with themselves and unhealthy. The same was true for any addiction. It pretended to give, but really it was sucking out all that was good. Like a vampire.
Did people get motivated to do good by watching evil unfold its gargantuan wings in a Netflix show? Filly thought not. Jesus was constantly talking to “his father” when confronted with evil. He went among those who were sick and diseased and broken, not to join them but to heal them. How did David confront evil, when he was going to battle with Goliath. He did not have great weapons or great power. He just had five small stones in a bag.
Filly thought that it was a great story. About overcoming evil. Like when a person is not well known, not that strong, but relies on God. She had her own five stones…five children. And her mom had also had five stones…Filly and her sisters. Giving children a reliance on God was the most powerful thing a mom and dad could do for their children.
And those Stones could indeed kill the dragon of evil influence, and addiction and disgrace. Filly liked how the word Disgrace had the word grace in it. With Grace, a person could avoid disgrace.
She had just heard an audio book (breaking creed)about a man who named his dog grace, who was a main character in the movie. Though Filly thought the book did a pretty good job, and agreed with kindness towards animals, they were not human beings, and grace was something spiritual that uplifts a person. Grace, in the book, came in the form of a dog and its training. But human beings have to choose God, good, in order to experience grace.
Chastity, purity, honesty, integrity, obedience, humility, perseverance and more are all the products of having received Grace. And each person, has the opportunity to ask for grace and healing instead of relying on evil. Evil ultimately destroys itself and ends up in endless suffering. No one should want that for themselves.
Filly wanted to know what God said about this..so she picked a random bible verse for the day.
And he did so, and made them all sit down.
Maybe what God was saying was that to understand Grace, a person first had to understand and demonstrate humility…sitting down to listen, instead of speaking. Like listening to a little child, whose words are innocent and pure…like looking in amazement up at a mammoth tree…and being in awe of its creation. Humility for the wonder of the creation of God.