The Twinkle Poof Theory

     I live in the Bible Belt. Living in such a responsible-sounding titled region, however, does not make one  automatically Bible savvy. No, farrrr from it. You see, as I live and go about my life here, what I observe my fellow Bible Belt homies (that would be my brothers and sisters in the Lord) doing is the mixing of their personal beliefs together with what the Bible declares as It's own beliefs. Here is a lighthearted example:

     There's a group of good ole boys standing around at a good ole Southern social. They begin to get into topics of the Bible-kind like sin, saints, and salvation (in the South, the weather, politics, and Jesus are popular topics). Upon further discussion of what it takes to get 'saved' and into Heaven, one pipes up and declares that if you're good enough then that's all that matters. One states that they've rededicated their life, again, and does that off and on to keep the slate clean, that should do it. Another blurts out, "Naw, naw here's the God's-honest-truth...you have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God...and that He died...and was buried in a tomb...and three days later He rose from the dead...and if He sees His shadow there will be six more weeks of basketball!" Righttttttt......

  There is one unspoken belief I encounter over-n-over-n-over-n-over, e-v-e-r-y-d-a-y. I call it The Twinkle Poof Theory. Again, remember, this is ALWAYS unspoken, NEVER voiced out loud. We, (as in the consensus) believe that God is a fairy godmother. Yes, with wand and everything. Now, with that belief comes all kind of notions like He comes at our beck-and-call, He's obligated to furnish our every whim, He must overlook any and all actions that resemble disobedience, rebellion, and lack of sensitivity to moral uprightness, aaaaand He is only to remember when we got saved, and use the 'Grace Clause' whenever we have a flesh-out party (which I call sin, but shhhhh...that's a taboo word around these parts). Yep, just like the good ole fairy godmothers in fairy tales. Notice that fairy godmothers are written as fable characters, God does not operate on the belief system of a fable. But, people like the idea of the fairy...she never requires you to change to get the benefits of..."The Wand".

     Ahhh, the Wand. God does not do Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo y'all. He does not wave His wand at your special requests that do NOT line up with what HIS belief system states.This is where it gets tricky for us that try to mix God's oil thoughts and our vinegar thoughts. We pull out the 'Grace Clause' and abuse it to death. Here is our interpretation of the Bible Belt-ers 'Grace Clause' :

     "I, as a saved individual, can and will continue to do what I want, when I want, like I want, and when my dumb decisions get me stuck with consequences with no regard to what God has documented in His covenant, I will holler...'graceeeeeeee!', and I will fully expect for everyone that is my friend on Facebook to pray me through my situation by asking God to look over why I am in this situation in the first place and wave His Mighty Wand in my direction and it will be all over, and all better, and that nasty ole thing that has disrupted my life will depart from me and I will continue forth with my same ways as before, thus saith I, the saved individual." (I, the saved individual, will determine the usage of the 'Grace Clause' as deemed necessary.)

     This path of thinking is like trying to fit God into our fairy godmother make-believe wand-waving ideas instead of us fitting into His Kingdom reality. Our hope is that God will go ahead and co-depend with us as we continue to just 'be who we are and we can't help our flaws' instead of calling out to Him and asking Him to be loving and kind and forgiving and help us to change our belief system and help us to stop mixing our concocted confused beliefs with His. He would be overjoyed to aid you and grant you that prayer...without even the use of a wand! He's seems to be very cool like that.

     I have a tendency to haul people unceremoniously into the reality of the way God's does things and the way He thinks, to get them to face their denial and self-deceit. There are just SO MANY theories that have to be addressed and proven out, like the one I like to call the Be-ings to W-ings Theory. This is the theory where my Bible Belt homies believe that when they die and go to Heaven, they will turn into angels. I will unceremoniously take that one on, too. But that is for another day, for my work seems to never be done, and shall never be as long as there are saved individuals around who believe that our future generations will have larger thumbs because of texting so much. Um...that would be the Theory of Evolution...