Jesus Freaks: The Prodigal (Jesus Freaks #2) (23 page)

It’s been a quiet couple of weeks since the small group of us met with Kennedy to discuss … whatever that was. We’re not organized, and Kennedy was sure to text me her concerns regarding that after she went back to work for the night and the five of us stayed around for a while to talk.

Heading into finals week, tension is dialing up around campus. Exams aside, I’ve just started to put that night at the strip club far in the back of my mind, and in a handful of days I’ll be back home with that place just a few miles away. And it won’t just be for a weekend. Winter break is nearly six weeks long. Six
whole
weeks. It’ll be the longest time my father and I have stayed under one roof since sometime in the middle of my senior year in high school. I can’t think about that right now, though. I
have
to get through my exams in one piece because Lord knows I can’t sit in Professor Towne’s Old Testament class for one more semester. I know I still need to take one more semester of OT, but at least it won’t be with him.

“You with us?” Kennedy snaps her fingers in front of my face, pulling me back to our study group.

I blink rapidly for a few seconds, trying to take Kennedy’s face out of that scene. That
place.
“I’m here, sorry.”

She doesn’t look like that girl from Tops. She doesn’t look like that girl from Tops.

I went to another one. In a skeevy neighborhood just past
Downtown. I went so I could prove to myself how awful it was. That the fantasies that have been in my head for the last couple of weeks were made up—a way to justify what I’d done in my hometown over Thanksgiving Break.

It was awful. But I stayed. I stayed and watched these girls—who looked about the same as the girls at The Pink Pony—dance all night long. I got a few demerits out of the deal. One for not signing out before going off campus, one for leaving campus alone, and one for breaking curfew. Those were minor compared to what would have happened if anyone knew where I’d been that whole time.

The demerits hardly matter. They don’t address what it did to my insides to look around at the men there and realize I was one of them. And I liked it. Not being grouped into their likeness, but watching the girls. It excited me to watch their hips move, their breasts heaving from the tops of their lacy bras.

But it was wrong, and I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back. Those women aren’t mine to view. Even though I paid to do just that. They’re not mine. None of them are.

Who do they belong to?

I just wanted to see what was so exciting for my dad to risk his life on. I know now. Exciting, yes. Worth risking everything? No. I can’t shake the images from my mind, though. They’re like an open invitation welcoming me back there whenever I want it. I just close my eyes and I’m there again. It was a week ago that I went to
Tops
,
and
I know it’ll be dumb if I go back again. Now or ever.

I’m not him.

“I barely know my own family tree,” Kennedy mumbles, pulling me away from my daydream—nightmare—again. “Yet, somehow, I need to memorize thousands of years of Jesus’?”

Silas leans over, looking at Kennedy’s notebook. “Here,” he says, circling some things on her page, “try organizing it this way.”

For a few seconds, Kennedy studies the lines and arrows Silas has drawn. “Brilliant,” she confirms with a smile.

The change in Silas over the last couple of weeks has been palpable. He’s actively seeking out friendships and things to do with people, and smiles more than he frowns. Bridgette says this is how he’s always been, which seems reasonable since that’s how
she
always is. He maintains that this change is the work of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual force behind God and Jesus that transforms live
s
and changes hearts. Technically Jesus is God, God is God,
and
the Holy Spirit is God, but they’re all just manifestations of the same thing. I guess. Anyway, Silas is different and, except for any medication he might be taking that I’m not aware of, I have to accept that God is working for him in ways that he’s not for me.

“Why do people say
Old Testament God
?” Kennedy asks, garnering the attention of our entire study group.

“What do you mean?” Eden asks, taking a break from her hand-holding with Jonah to put her hair in a ponytail.

Kennedy twists her lips in thought. “Not people in the Bible. I mean among us. People within our denomination or other denominations will say,
the God of the Old Testament,
or something like that. It’s the same God. Why the distinction?”

Bingo.

As usual, one of Kennedy’s honest, innocent questions stumps a group that, for most of their lives, has taken everything at face value. Not asking too many questions for fear of external repercussions or, more likely, fear of what they’d find.

“I mean,” she continues, “it’s not like he went to therapy or started taking SSRI’s. I get that his behavior seems different but, really … I think free will really scr—messed with him.” She’s getting better, but sometimes forbidden words still try to break free from her lips.

“Messed with who? God?” Jonah sets his pencil down and leans back, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Kennedy nods. “It’s like the eternal tale of the inventor who steps back in horror and exclaims,
I’ve created a monster!
” She chuckles and the rest of us seem to lean in at once, watching her think out loud. “It’s like God had this little box of free will he’d created however long ago, and was waiting for the right time to use it. Then, he created humans and thought,
sure, why not
? His plan seemed to be that allowing humans to have free will, they’d be able to choose to turn it back to him and, for their own good, allowing him to guide their lives. And, of course, they could use their free will for good, once praying about it … or something. Anyway, my point is … I think … is God created a monster when he gave humans free will. His wrath, while tough to swallow in the Old Testament, was him trying to rein it all in. Then, he decided to come down.”

“Sent an ant,” Silas cuts in. I wasn’t friends with them back when Kennedy told the tale of ants marching and sending messages to other ants and Jesus being the ant God sent to get through to us, but Silas and Jonah talked about it off and on for days. It stuck.

“An ant.” Kennedy nods.

“
People
don’t separate the Old and New Testament God,” Eden pipes in with a fire in her eyes. “It’s certain denominations of Christians that find the ramifications of sin uncomfortable, usually.”

Kennedy’s eyes narrow and she bites her bottom lip. “You’re probably right. I’ll find out at Christmas, though, since I’ll be going to both Fundamentalist and Episcopalian services while home.”

Bridgette’s eyes widen. “You’ll get in trouble.”

“No I won’t. The guidelines state that we must find an evangelical Bible-teaching church to attend while not on campus. I found one. It says nothing of attending additional services. Calm down, Bridge. I’m not going to come back dancing with a pentagram around my neck. I just want to compare the teachings of where I came from to where I am now. Kind of see where it all lines up.”

Seemingly placated, Bridgette takes a deep breath and flips to another page in her book.

I clear my throat, uncomfortable with being only a spectator in this discussion. Plus, I need to get out of my own head. “Wait up. You talked about God giving us free will. Choosing us to get the
gift
and not, say, a giraffe.” She nods, I continue. “And you say that free will ran wild in humans.”

“Most.”

Flicking my gaze around the table, I see the eyes of our friends grow wide as the
y
watch the debate unfold.

“So, you’re suggesting God made a mistake?”

“What?” she naps. “No.”

“Then how do you explain free will running wild?”

She arches an eyebrow. “How do you explain free will at all?”

My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

“See?” she continues. “He created this beautiful, awesome thing, that he knew would mean he had to let go of some of his control. His hope was that humans would learn to love him and surrender their free will to his. You know,
your will, not mine be done
. He knew it wouldn’t be perfect, but could he have imagined tens of thousands of people renouncing his name and worshiping golden calves?”

“He knew,” Jonah cuts in. “He knew how it would work out.”

Kennedy points at Jonah. “He knew
that
it would work out, but I challenge that he knew
how.
Everyone says that God ordains our steps, but sometimes our own free will can get in the way of it. He
knew
that was a possibility.”

“I’m pretty sure Satan fits in here somewhere,” Silas says.

“Yeah?” Kennedy asks. “How?”

Silas clears his throat. “When God created man with free will, Satan wasn’t yet in the picture. His existence complicates the operating system of free will. It’s a kink in the pipe, if you will. A blockage. If we were all hearing from God all the time, then it would be pretty easy to understand that we’re to turn our will over. Also, even when it is God testing us directly, we’d still have a clear and un-clogged heart with which to listen. But, with Satan in the picture, we get a lot of
external noises and messages
, and don’t know who to listen to.”

“When was Satan created, though?” Kennedy shifts in her seat. “Isn’t it supposed that he was behind the serpent in the garden?”

I pipe up, eager to share knowledge from some side reading on sin I’ve been doing. “It’s kind of understood that the serpent is Satan. But, he didn’t cause the sin in the garden. Eve
listened
to the lies, and her own desires took over and, well, here we are.”

“Where do those desires come from?” Bridgette asks. No one is studying OT anymore. Instead, we’re discussing it.

Eden shrugs. “Free will?”

“But if Satan was formerly an angel, or holy being, or whatever else, that God, assumably, created, how did he have desires in his own heart apart from God?” Kennedy runs a hand through her hair, and a light pink takes over her cheeks.

“Right,” Jonah enters excitedly. “If God created Satan, then he would have known the desires of his heart … just like he told Moses about Pharaoh’s heart.”

“So he just let it happen?” Silas asks, sounding as defeated as I’ve felt for the last year and a half.

He just let it happen.

Kennedy exhales, puffing out her cheeks. “Sovereignty? Is that what we’re hinging all of this on?” She shrugs. “Just … whatever? God doing what God does for reasons we don’t get to understand yet?”

“Wait,” Bridgette cuts in, eyeing Silas, then the rest of us. “This is about patience. Salvation. God didn’t send Satan to hell when he sinned. He sent him to earth.”

“To run amuck with us?” Eden questions.

Bridgette shakes her head. “No. I don’t think that was it. I think it was his second chance. He didn’t send him straight to hell. He doesn’t send anyone to hell. He gave Satan a chance at salvation
even though
Genesis three-fifteen says that his head would be crushed. I think God held out hope … that the
will
would turn Satan around.”

“I don’t know, Bridge,” Jonah speaks up. “That seems a little far-fetched. I mean, it all sounds good until you look at Genesis three-fifteen and realize it all worked out according to the plan.”

Bridgette shrugs, exhaling a long, light breath. “They didn’t have Jesus. We do. We don’t have to be held hostage by sin.”

“But we can be victimized by the sins of others,” Kennedy states softly.

A thick heaviness settles over the table. We’re at an impasse. A circular reasoning in which God gives free will, knows the desires of our hearts, and interjects sometimes, and not others. A God who let Satan fall, let Eve bite that apple
;
let Roland walk away from Kennedy, let … just
let
.

“Sovereignty.” Jonah sounds defeated, leaning forward and picking up his pencil in an effort to get back to the task at hand.

Eden puts a hand on Jonah’s shoulder, and forces half a smile. “All things work together for good—”

“No,” I snap through gritted teeth. “Don’t hit me with Romans eight-twenty-eight, Eden. Is that all we have? Seriously? All we have to stand on when our world crumbles around us is that it’ll all work out okay? Even if we are slaughtered in the process?” I shove my textbook and papers into my backpack and push my chair back, standing quickly.

“Matt,” Kennedy whispers, putting her hand over my wrist.

I shake it off. “It’s not good enough. If his eternal love comes at the price of a living hell on earth, I don’t want it.”