Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Woe to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who put darkness for light
    and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter.

• Isaiah 5:20

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

• Romans 1:18-32

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

• 1 Timothy 4:1-5

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

• 2 Timothy 3:1-7

 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

• Mark 5:11-17

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

• Luke 19:41-44

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

• Hebrews 5:7

Jesus wept.

• John 11:35

“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”

• C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

I had another dream that I could not remember, but when I awoke, in the middle of the night, I had to write this.  It is a subject that I have avoided.  But as for the dream, I have no idea about the dream other than this topic was on my mind upon awaking, and I did not wish to lose the idea by going back to sleep.  And something told me that I did not wish to return to that dream.

There has been a commercial running steadily in our area for a “behavioral clinic.”  They never show what they do or any testimonials, but they use every euphemism in the book to encourage you to see them.  They guarantee that whatever you feel your inadequacy is or who you feel you really are, they can transform you into what you want to be.  Not really thinly veiled, but the euphemisms say gender dysphoria.

It seems everyone knows someone who has undergone the treatments and the surgery.  The statistics show that a lot regret their decision and, at best, the odds of successful reversal are low.

If you keep your prayer lines monitored, you’ll find people who have committed suicide or have been admitted to the hospital’s psychiatric ward.  You may be praying for such a person now.  People sometimes disguise what is going on because it is not just the person who changed their body that is affected, it is the entire family.  They use euphemisms of their own knowing that God knows what is really going on, and only God can fix the situation.  That is what makes those advertisements so horrible.  But then again, they would not get much business if they advertised what the life-long success rate is.

I often make the comment in general that we may or may not know that it is God telling us that we need Him, and trying anything else will be unsuccessful.  That emptiness will remain whether the body has been irrevocably altered or not.

But I think a lot of people had dysphoria in their lifetime.  I have only been to male locker rooms, but anything that makes you stand out is noticed.  In the Babs and Harold conversations, I gave Harold the backstory of not having hair down below while the rest of his classmates had hair.  Thus, he was teased with the sarcastic nickname of “Hairy”, because he was not.  He refused to have anyone call him Harry as a result.  It was Harold or Mr. Dykstra.

But I used this fictional backstory to illustrate anything that is different will not just be noticed, it will be ridiculed.  What about the only boy that is not circumcised?  What about if a testicle is missing, or twice the size that it should be?  Heaven forbid, you have a combination of things.  But unfortunate birthmarks are a target.  And band geeks get ridiculed because they do not take physical education, usually.  Just being a head shorter or a head taller, especially if extremely awkward, are targets for abuse.  I am sure you might think of something else.

When I was verbally abused for one reason or another, actually a combination of reasons, my Dad said to be just as tough as they were.  I never picked the fight, but when the coach put the boxing gloves on us, I usually finished the fight, but then I sobbed after I got home.  Why was this world so cruel that a fight until the other boy said he “had enough” was the way to resolve it?  I was careful where I cried.  My Dad never wanted me to do that, and I even held it in during his funeral, although I missed him then and still nearly fifteen years later.

With the ridicule spilling past the gym and into the classroom, you would rather be anyone other than the person God made you to be.

But that is the point.  When we say that we have to change who we are, we are saying that God made a mistake.  In a lot of cases of locker room abuse, the other boys made the mistake, and they got away with it.  And this goes far beyond gender dysphoria.

I have a lot of Scriptures today.  The first four talk about how the world will start calling evil things good, and the good evil.  One of the reasons is for self-interest.  The television advertisements focus on “what you want to become.”  The rest of the world can just take a hike.

So, while we make vile gestures in God’s general direction, and we do whatever is necessary to take control of an uncontrollable situation, there are those who enable us, and those who encourage the wrong behavior.

I keep coming back to a seventh-grade teacher, back when I would have weekend long headaches due to boys picking fights with me for a variety of reasons.  She taught us that we cannot take that second drink that might make us drunk if we never take the first drink.  But this morning, I remembered that she talked about bad behavior: drinking, drugs, smoking, gambling, picking your nose in public, etc.  She said that we should do something to help our friend from going down one of those paths, but often, we cover up for their wrongdoing.  We make excuses for their behavior.  In other words, we give them a path in which they can continue the behavior.  We become their enabler.

These days, like the television advertisements, we also have encouragers.  We have the technology and no one cares about morality except for those extremist “nut jobs.”  “Come see us, we will encourage you to do the evil thing because we have labeled it good, just for you.”

I included Jesus casting the demons into pigs.  What did the pigs do?  They immediately ran into the sea and drowned themselves.  Pigs are an unclean animal in the Jewish faith and with Muslims.  If an unclean pig can see evil for what it is, and prefer death as the option, since they could not cast the demons out of themselves, why is it that we cannot see evil for what it is?

And then, the townspeople told Jesus that he was not welcome there.  I have heard that Jesus ruined their economy, but I think they were satisfied with their unclean lifestyle and did not wish to see the other wonders that Jesus could do.  They were content with being evil.

Jesus wept three times, if you extend the Holy week to include Lazarus rising from the dead, all three accounts were right then.  He wept when Martha showed her grief.  He felt her grief.  He was 100% man, and 100% God.  Then He wept because Jerusalem had their chances to repent, and they failed.  He knew what would happen that week, and He knew what would happen about one generation later, with many of the people He saw seeing the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.  And then, Jesus wept in Gethsemane, for you and for me.

I think He still weeps as He sees our failures and He sees what He knew would eventually happen, with the world becoming upside down as it now is.

But as the quote from C.S. Lewis, maybe improperly applied, there is a time for crying, but then, you have to stop and get the job done.

When Jesus does that, He will return, and the upside-down world revelers will be the ones crying.  If they had only looked to God when they felt something was wrong.  Only God can fix that feeling.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.