Episode 23 - McKenzie Hates Religion

The sound of the tolling bell invaded McKenzie’s mind. It was seven a.m. on a sunny Sunday morning and the faithful were making their way to early mass. Historically, France is a predominantly Roman Catholic country with a past that is steeped in religiosity far removed from the character of Jesus Christ. Fear has bound and controlled the Catholic Christians who, for the most part, are blissfully unaware of any other viable alternatives. McKenzie came from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, another stronghold of religious control. He hated religion and that put him off Christianity although he still didn’t know that there was a difference between the two. Slowly, however, the revelation was beginning to dawn on him. McKenzie was about to embark on a massive learning curve. McKenzie collected his thoughts and focussed on the day ahead. He knew that it contained lurking dangers and he would need to have his wits about him. Emile, his long time friend, had set up the meeting with Youssef, a Moroccan refugee, who now earned a rather lucrative living by selling secrets to the highest bidder. He was not to be trusted….. Psalm 55:23…..But you, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption; bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days. But as for me, I trust in you. To find out more about this bible verse please go to ‘Crisis to Blessings’: http://www.getthegist.net/

The smell of sulphur and the stench of filth made McKenzie want to retch. It overpowered him; dank, putrid decay, the reek of death. The tortured screaming was at fever-pitch way beyond the capabilities of anything human. Involuntarily, McKenzie let out a scream himself. It came from somewhere deep within him and inside that desperate cry was every ounce of McKenzie’s last hope of survival. Out of nowhere McKenzie suddenly felt his fall being cushioned by an invisible source. Instead of falling downwards into the jaws of the devouring black evil abyss he was travelling upwards at the speed of light towards a glorious, magnificent, iridescent kaleidoscope of brilliant colours. McKenzie was exhilarated, he was overwhelmed with euphoria. Elated and filled with tremendous joy, McKenzie lay back into the invisible arms and enjoyed the ride. All of a sudden, McKenzie was in the centre of an inexpressible light. Colours flashed all around him. He could almost touch and taste each colour, however, as he reached out to take hold of them they morphed into yet another holographic display of tremendous beauty. Peace began to soak him like mist on a mountainside; like a breath, a gentle breeze caressed him in love. McKenzie didn’t want it to stop. He thought that his heart would burst with such tremendous elation, a symphony of love, joy and peace. Still it came, wave after wave of enrapturing harmony. McKenzie felt at one with all that was happening. He blended into the light and the love until he was completely unaware of himself. He knew that he had been saved from utter, unending evil and he was now soaked and saturated in this expansive, great goodness. He didn’t want it to stop and somehow, deep inside, he knew it never would….. 1 John 1:5……This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. To find out more about this bible verse please go to ‘Marvellous Light’: http://www.getthegist.net/

McKenzie was spiralling backwards, falling into empty darkness. He felt helpless; unable to coordinate his movements; unable to think straight. What was happening to him? He had no idea. He reached out desperately trying to catch hold of something, anything to stop him falling. He caught hold of a horrible slimy thing that gave him the creeps but he couldn’t keep hold of it. As it slipped from his grasp, McKenzie saw the ugliest face of indescribable evil stare back at him. It had piercing dark eyes that gripped his soul. Panicking, McKenzie scanned the unyielding void. At that moment the screaming started; eerie, spine-chilling, blood-curdling screaming, first one demented, twisted voice then another and another. The cacophony was overwhelming; ear-splitting, unrelenting like slow sadistic torture to the point of death but death like a predator toyed with its prey. Spinning, spiralling deeper, McKenzie plummeted downwards into the gaping jaws of whatever awaited him in chasm below….. Matthew 10:28….Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. To find out more about this bible verse please go to ‘Hell is a Real Place‘: http://www.getthegist.net/

It was the smell that first caught McKenzie’s attention. It transported him back to a time when he lived in Kisumu, Kenya. He was six years old. His family lived in the security of the military compound where his father had been unexpectedly stationed. McKenzie made friends quickly with some of the other white children but it was the Kenyan children that he liked the most. He had never known any black kids before. Blessing was a boy roughly the same age as McKenzie but that’s where the similarities stopped. Blessing had a younger sister called Precious. Together they came into the compound every day. While their mother cleaned around the compound her children would sit, well behaved, on the carefully tended lawn. When it came time to clean McKenzie’s family home, McKenzie would go out to play. Blessing loved football and so too did McKenzie. They didn’t speak each other’s language but football knew no language barriers. During the rough and tumble of close-contact hot and sweaty games, McKenzie noticed the smell of their sweat. As soon as the family sat next to him on the plane he smelled it. They must have been rushing to catch their flight; mother, her two children and, McKenzie presumed, a family friend. He breathed deep and enjoyed the memories that their smell evoked….. 2 Corinthians 2:16….To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. To find out more about this bible verse please go to ‘What Do You Smell?‘: http://www.getthegist.net/

To say Sanjid’s house was shabby was a gross misunderstatement. The ancient outer edifice was crumbling and so too were the walls inside. It was highly unlikely that the windows had ever been cleaned. The threadbare linen draped over them, although once vibrant with colour, was now sun-bleached to a monochromatic grey. It was held together by the cobwebs that generations of spiders had dexterously spun over gaping holes where countless flies were trapped in mass graves. McKenzie stooped under the low roof in the dusty room where the meeting was to be held. Sanjid motioned for him to sit down, so McKenzie sat cross-legged on the warped wooden floor. Sanjid had no desire to work in the brick factory that had employed his family since the day it was built. In an attempt to get out he had found himself a niche where he could work running errands for the local underworld. Unwittingly, he had found himself entangled with an Iranian-backed extremist group who, single-handedly wanted to rid Pakistan of every white infidel. McKenzie felt uncomfortable. Could he trust Sanjid? Could he trust Sanjid’s friends who had brought McKenzie to the meeting? Sanjid had information that was, potentially, worth a lot of money and that pay-off was his ticket to a better world far away from the political tensions and daily danger of living in Pakistan. He claimed to know of a secret arms dump that included a nuclear rocket silo. McKenzie knew that these guys were capable of committing any atrocity known to man (and a few that weren’t!), even if that meant firing a nuclear bomb into any predominantly white country. They had neither morals nor scruples regarding mass murder or even single murder for that matter. McKenzie felt distinctly vulnerable….. Joshua 1:9…..Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go. To find out more about this bible verse please go to ‘Be Strong and Courageous‘: http://www.getthegist.net/

McKenzie’s Edge During his time of self-imposed isolation, McKenzie had exercised less and eaten more. He had gained a few extra pounds. Not so much that anyone would notice, anyone that is, except McKenzie. McKenzie felt that he had lost his edge. His mind was less sharp and his reactions were slow. He didn’t like it, his keen instincts were fuzzy. It surely wasn’t only as a result of being slightly overweight, although that would certainly contribute, no, there was something else. Isolation and a lack of interactive relationships would also be a factor. However, the one main cause for McKenzie being under par was directly related to McKenzie’s distinct lack of adventure! At heart, McKenzie was an adrenalin junkie and it had been far too long since his last fix. He was a man of action. Now, with his project sufficiently advanced, it was time for McKenzie to start joining the dots. His first port of call was Pakistan. It was time to find out what was really going on with their nuclear arsenal….. McKenzie’s first meeting in Lahore didn’t produce much although it was good to meet up with old friends. On his way to Multan, however, his driver detoured into Khanewal and things began to look up….. 1 John 3:18….Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. To find out more about this bible passage, follow this link to ‘Actions Speak Louder than Words’: http://www.getthegist.net

McKenzie Looks for a Connection McKenzie found himself at church. It was somewhere in middle England at the beginning of spring. With new life bursting out all around him, it seemed like an excellent time to make a God connection in the hope of getting things off to a good start after his winter of isolation. From the outside it didn’t look like a church building. It was a factory unit in an industrial estate. McKenzie liked that. One thing that repulsed McKenzie was overt religion. Non-religious Christianity was often difficult to find because religion soiled true Christianity like a bad stain. Furthermore, it was McKenzie’s sad experience that religion and Christianity were bed-fellows that were difficult to separate. McKenzie was made to feel welcome when he entered. Without much ado, he progressed into the main auditorium just as the band began to play and they were good. The presentation was good, the sound quality was good, the stage lighting was good and the projected visuals were also good. As the end of Genesis chapter one tells us; God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. However, as the meeting progressed, the well rehearsed format morphed into a praise and worship formula. It was all quite slick but it was also frustratingly familiar. It opened a door to the spirit of Religion who battled with the Spirit of God for control. The potential was there to make this a momentous, life-changing moment for everyone, but religious ritual, cleverly cloaked in charismatic exuberance, sucked at McKenzie’s energy. Instead of the tangible presence of God’s glory, religion descended like a thick fog. Many of McKenzie’s most amazing life-altering encounters with God had happened outside of the traditional church setting. Now, his attention span wavered and he began to be distracted. He looked around and saw that the congregation were, for the most part, sincere and responsive. The Pastor was sincere. He obviously loved God, the bible and his flock. Clearly, he was looking for ways to inspire his people with the fullness of his message, so that, they would have their own personal revelation of what God was saying to each of them individually. McKenzie felt the Pastor’s frustration and hoped that he would accomplish what he had set out to do. His job was not enviable, it was jolly hard work. He showed great endurance and perseverance. It seemed that the beloved would need to be wooed for a while longer….. McKenzie was reminded of Song of Solomon chapter 1 verse 4. The bible says….. Take me away with you - let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers. To find out more about this bible verse please go to ‘Connecting with Jesus’: http://www.getthegist.net/

McKenzie comes out of Hibernation McKenzie caught his reflection in a shop window. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He looked like someone who had been isolated, hidden high on a mountain or deep in a jungle or lost in a desert. His eyes stared and darted everywhere trying to make sense of too much information. He looked like a crazy-man, cowered and scuffling, as he looked for shadows to hide in. His hair was long and so too was his beard. He was overweight and his clothes had seen better days. His reclusive lifestyle whilst productive had done nothing for his image. He was feeling fearful and overwhelmed among so many people in the city. McKenzie needed a makeover, bad. First-off, he went for a short haircut and a beard trim. He wasn’t ready to lose the beard altogether, he may need it to hide behind. He couldn’t stomach the small talk from the slightly camp barber. He felt detached and uninvolved with his life and lifestyle. McKenzie had been locked into his project all winter and he felt like a bear coming out of ‘hibernation’. In his mind, he had created a complex interweave of plots and intrigue and, in doing so, he had unwittingly distanced himself from the real world of ‘ordinary’ people. He was now struggling to re-connect….. Daniel 12:2….Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. To find out more about this bible verse please go to ‘Eternity’: http://www.getthegist.net/

McKenzie Finds Hope McKenzie scanned the parched desert landscape expecting to see nothing but, hoping that he would see something or someone, some kind of life, anything. As his trained eyes journeyed slowly through the bleak, arid, inhospitable terrain, he stopped to look again at a speck in the distance. It hovered in the shimmering heat. It may have been his imagination, it may have been a mirage, but it was worth checking out. McKenzie filled up his canteen with water from the drum in his pick-up and set off in the direction of that indistinguishable fragment of hope. As he got closer the speck grew larger and took on a distinct shape. When he finally reached it, McKenzie discovered with delight that he had stumbled upon a caravanserai; a roadside resting place where travellers could rest and recover from the day's journey. These caravanserai supported the, albeit sporadic, flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes throughout North Africa. Although currently deserted, McKenzie knew that, eventually, some desert nomads or, perhaps, a travelling trader, would stop by for refreshment. All he had to do was wait….. Job 11:18….You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. To find out more about this bible verse please go to ‘What are you Hoping for?‘: http://www.getthegist.net/

McKenzie Gets Cooked The wind died away leaving McKenzie sitting in the merciless inferno of airless sunshine. He felt like a piece of meat tossed on a barbeque griddle as he began to cook in the unrelenting heat. He focussed his mind and tried to find a place inside his head where he could cope. He tried not to sweat but beads of perspiration began to form on his forehead and he felt trickles of sweat run down his rib cage. There was nowhere to hide. McKenzie’s car, like McKenzie himself, had overheated on the sand-covered single-track road that ran from Reganne to In Salah through the Algerian Sahara. Wisely, he had a five-gallon drum of water in the back of his borrowed pick-up. McKenzie had turned off the engine to allow it to cool down. As he waited his mind went back to Spain and to Maria. She knew nothing of his whereabouts and, therefore, no amount of torture would make her give him away. He hoped that she would not suffer long before she died. Vultures circled high overhead but McKenzie was determined that he was not going to become a carrion feast for them to gorge on. He popped the bonnet; there was a gentle hiss of steam as he opened the radiator cap. Bracing himself on the front bumper, he carefully began pouring water into the radiator. Immediately, it came straight through, soaking his feet. The radiator was blown. Stay calm, McKenzie told himself, there is a solution….. Isaiah 58:11….The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. To find out more about this bible verse please go to ‘The Lord Will Satisfy You‘: http://www.getthegist.net/