Ridding My Life of Toxic People?

I see meme after meme after meme on social media to the effect that I should:

* Rid my life of toxic people.
* Banish all negativity from my life; don't let it touch me.
* Guard myself from all possible emotional harm.

But the Saviour I worship did NONE of these things. His incarnation into this world was nothing less than full immersion in negativity. He suffered emotional harm. He lived and died his life entirely for toxic people. How can I do otherwise?

This painting (Ed Knippers, "Pest House - Christ Heals the Sick") is how I see Christ (and, prayerfully, myself) in the world:

Marital Intimacy in Heaven

A few weeks back, I was pondering this verse while at the gym, and got a little peeved at God:

"For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." (Matthew 22:30)

Given the blazing success that marriage to Cindy has been for me, it irks me that decades of development of emotional intimacy, the accumulation of inside jokes, the crafting of our own unique lexicon ... shared by only the two of us ... all that will be down the drain in the kingdom of heaven, says our Lord. And it seems like such a waste.

Why would God take all that away from us? It seems like a downgrade. In fact, it doesn't really seem like something our amazingly generous God would do. So then I thought: "Maybe he won't. Maybe I've misapprehended the verse."

What if ... God being overly generous and loving emotional, spiritual, and every other kind of intimacy with and among his people ... what if God went truly overboard with generosity and gave us that same level of intimacy seen in the very best marriages ... I say, what if God gave us that same intimacy with EVERY other believer in heaven? It seems so like Him to do that. If you look at the world He has crafted, from micro-organisms to galaxies, it fairly screams out, "Yes! More! All of it! Infinite! Yes!"

So, this is my current view of heaven, that each believer's intimacy with each other, and our intimacy with God, shall be like (nay, exceed!) the intimacy in the best marriages on earth. Rather than taking one thing away, God will give me 100 million times more! So like Him, to do that.

"Yeah ... I heard a funny thing.  Somebody said to me, you know, that I could be in love with almost everyone."

Energy - A New Poem

Energy

For reasons God keeps hidden from the world,

He loves to turn potential to kinetic.

To take a pent-up energy tight-furled,

And change it into something most frenetic.

So walls of ocean water piled high

Soon crash the beach as waves of violent foam.

So high voltaic potential in the sky

Must flash to ground with no resisting Ohm.

So differences in pressure must let fly

Fierce atmospheric force, and winds rush home.

Thus in my members, when not with my love,

A terrible potential there is bound.

But, when at last with her I’m speaking of,

It’s loosed like lightning finding its true ground.

©2016, Paul W Erlandson