Throwing up on God

Okay. Well, I never intended this to be my first post, but because God blessed me with the gift of procrastination I’ve put off posting until now. In some ways I believe God was letting me wait just long enough to get an idea into my thick head… so here goes.

I don’t get grossed out by too many things. I mean, under normal circumstances, I can stomach most anything, and while I’m not a big fan of gory movies or those shows on the Discovery Channel where they do operations on people’s innards or show babies being born, I can get past it for the most part.

However, there is a reason I’ve never wanted to be a school janitor – I am allergic to vomit. Let me explain it this way. If I happened to be a super hero that could save the world of evil injustice, and that evil injustice just happened to puke, I would become about as useful as Walmart bag with a hole in it. Seriously, when it comes to vomit I am a girl. There’s this one episode of Americas Funniest Videos where this kid is going to blow out his candles on his birthday cake but blow’s chunks on it instead. That is NOT funny. They should put warnings on those videos before they show them… especially if you’re eating birthday cake when you watch that. It should be on Americas Grossest Videos…

But let me get to my point.

This past weekend I went swimming with my wife and son. We had a great time at the pool as our little man is about 13 months old now and can really get a thrill out of playing in the big tub. We get home and start our normal nightly routine with the boy… get a snack, get a bath, go to bed. I put Jack down to play in the living room and start moving towards my night time chores when… you guessed it… he pukes. Well, Mom and I were pretty freaked since he doesn’t just normally hurl so we started trying to rewind to what the problem might be. We must not have rewound fast enough because about two minutes later came round two.

By this time we were seriously worried. Bethany had read an article earlier in the week about dry drowning, so we didn’t know what to think. We had just come from swimming, he wasn’t showing signs of sickness, and all of a sudden we’ve got two pukes and now a duke; thus, off we go to see the good people at the local ER.

We get to the hospital and begin the walk to the doors that would hopefully shed light on our predicament when… yep – puke number three. This time however, I got the opportunity to wear the vomit. Yes… wear it. It was on me. A good 99% of it. (If I’m not clear on this, vomit – half digested food- from my son’s stomach was on my shirt.) We get signed in (I’m still wearing the shirt), we go back to the room (I’m still wearing the shirt), we wait for the doctor (I’m still wearing the shirt), we wait, wait, wait (shirt still on, vomit hasn’t gone anywhere). Soon came pukes four and five which now grace the shoulder of Bethany and the little bed in the middle of the room. I had to cover the vomit on the bed with some of those little towlette things. The room was taking on an odor of high school hallways after they serve that meat and gravy surprise and I was still wearing the puke shirt (can you tell this was traumatic for me???).

Honestly, I’m not being that much over dramatic. It was gross. Not like when someone shows you the food they’re eating or the stuff they just blew out of their nose gross. This was a very unintentional gross. My son was sick and I had to be as strong as possible to help him get through. I would have done anything I needed to do for him because he is my son and I love him. I think I grew as a Dad to a different degree that night.

I think God gags a little when His kids are sick too. Now, I am in no way comparing myself to God, but because I understand the father figure roll a little better I am going to make the association.

Sickness for humanity is sin. While I believe that God views all sin as gross, He views sin in a Christian’s life as absolutely disgusting. And, if you’ll allow me to take this concept a bit further, when a Christ follower sins it is like throwing up on God. After all, a Christian has taken a vow to “follow Christ”, and there can’t be much following of Christ when Christ knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21 NLT: For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.)

Here’s the repulsive picture I’m seeing:
Jesus, hanging on the cross, dying for my sins.

Me, not living the life I promised to live, not acting the way I promised to act, not loving others the way He instructed, puking all over Him as he suffered, bled, died and… loved me enough to do anything He needed to do because I am God’s son, and He loves me.

And I am not alone.

You know where you are in life.

You know if you’re throwing up on God.

Where do you go from here?

John 3:16 NLT:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

1 John 3:16 NLT:
We know what real love is because Christ gave up his life for us. And so we also ought to give up our lives for our Christian brothers and sisters.