[24] He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, [25] but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. [26] So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. [27] And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ [28] He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ [29] But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. [30] Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.' "-- Matthew 13:24–30 (ESV)
The wheat and the weeds grow together, the wheat being planted by the Son of Man, and the other sown by the Devil. Yet, despite knowing this -- the weeds being wicked and life-sucking and the wheat being good and life-giving -- Jesus (as portrayed by the Master) says that the servants should wait until harvest time before getting rid of them. Thus, the Lord has left us with a principle and reality of our faith: You can't get rid of those pesky weeds, and if you do, you might accidentally get rid of a wheat, so we should let the final judgment come from God.
"This is a hard saying. Who can hear it?" I say, echoing the Jewish forerunners before me, only I do not stay in the matters of fleshy things, inevitably turning my back on Christ, but on the things that are of Spirit and life, therefore partaking in the actual Eucharist (technically). This is a really drawn-out analogy to make this point: Like Peter, I have no one else to go to, so if the Lord tells me I gotta stay amid the weeds, then it is what it is. As a born-again believer, obedience to my Lord is my primary objective. Admittedly, it has become more challenging since my days in "T H E C U L T," aka, The Message, but it has also never been clearer. It's as though the more I mature with the Lord, the more difficult it becomes to walk in obedience with him, feeling as though he does not hear me, or see me, or sometimes even care for me, though I know, in my heart of hearts, that is not true. I know He feels the exact opposite, but I do not feel it.
It's hard to with my mind in the state it's in.
Perhaps that's a little bit of leftover from The Message, that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad cult that loves its charisma more than Christ. They would essentially rework your emotions into a "Holy Ghost experience" while simultaneously creating the environment that emotionally manipulated you, so that when you went to church and these "mighty men of God" brought the "fire" down, you would scream, and yell, and cry, and dance, not because you were worshipping God, but because your body was releasing the days, weeks, months, and years of trauma you were experiencing.
Pastor-made trauma. Minister-endorsed trauma. You know: Abuse and all that jazz.
Anyway, the point is I hate them. That's the point. The problem? I shouldn't. Jesus tells me not to. He tells me to forgive them, to help them see the light, to help them repent (like I continuously have to), to potentially restore them to good standing. I've thought about this a lot -- this idea that my old cult church (being as imphatic as they are), if restored to biblical principles after they would hypothetically reject that no-good false prophet, the "Almighty William Branham," then they might just have an amazing church on their hands. At the core of it all, there was a community there, a family, and this family, despite all the bad that's caked over it, could really do some good. Weirdly, after some study of the Eucharist and how it looked in the early church, my cult church was practicing it pretty closely, at least in appearance.
It's odd how close to the real deal deception is.
That's the hard thing about the wheat and the tares, as Jesus emphasizes in his teaching: most of the time, humans can't tell the difference. Sometimes, I look back and only think about the good things, the parts that were wholesome, fun, and, dare I say it, loving. This is a common happening for people who were in abusive relationships (which is what I would quantify every relationship I ever had in the Message as), but that does not mean that the good times, the good things, were not actual. In fact, that's what makes it so appealing and so hard to navigate: There was something real there. Good stuff happened. The evil ruler let us eat cake. Sure, it would be comparable to eating a chocolate cake mixed with poo, but by definition, it doesn't make the cake any less of a cake.
What I mean to say is, not all of the weeds in the Message were weeds in the same way that not all of the wheat were wheat. Not everything bad was bad, and not everything good was good, but both happened. Both were real. For every fun youth activity, there was an indoctrination camp. For every fall festival, there was that one salsa that no one ate at the contest because it was absolutely vile (though they would all lie about it because they didn't want to hurt their feelings... though they would still gossip about it behind that same person's back). For every legitimate friendship, there was a bit of animosity underneath the surface; for every version of me that existed throughout it, there is the current version of me that destroys them as often as he can.
I saw a meme the other day that said: "When you make a joke in 2026 but remember that ain't **** funny." The video was a clip of Michael Jackson singing "It's a wonderful day," a big smile on his face, whimsy fluttering off of him, only for him to look around, drop his smile, and stare into the abyss. That's hilarious, I think, not smiling. Perhaps this random meme lord is right: **** really ain't funny.
I used to be happier. Smile more, talk more -- have more hope. I remember a co-teacher I worked with when I was teaching high school would (playfully) get annoyed with me because of how optimistic I was. One day, when I was particularly excited about this new lesson I was going to try, she looked up at me and said, "Aw. That's adorable. You still have the light in your eyes." I chuckled. She did not. She continued: "Don't worry. It'll go away." She laughed. I didn't.
But the funny thing about it was, the joke I didn't get was that she was right: It did go away, and ultimately, what that taught me is that with or without a cult, life is going to rob you of that light, that spark of life that we all have before the horrors of it set in. Jesus keeps that fire stoked and helps in all those matters, but that doesn't mean the matters aren't still real with lifelong effects. The real revelation of it all is that he is the light in and of itself. But the older you get, the harder it gets -- the more you think about what was rather than what is, and then (worst of all), you want to throw it out; remove the weeds. I think that was what was most interesting about my coworker's outlook on life, her sense of humor: She recognized the hilarity in the harsh truth that the light will eventually go away, and when it does, you learn the truth of the real at the cost of your innocence. Therefore, the innocent and immature laugh at the absurdity in the statement, while the mature and experienced laugh at the punchline that comes with time.
I suppose I have yet to get the joke.
In Jesus's parable of the wheat and weeds, there's a fourth party: the reapers. The Master says that he'll send them to harvest one day, and the wheat will be taken up, the weeds burned. Clearly, this seems to be an allegorical allusion to the second judgment, when the believers are taken to spend eternity with God's joy, and the others with His wrath. You'll notice the wheat and the weeds are not the reapers nor the Master, which I think puts things in perspective quite obviously: We don't make the final judgment call. We simply continue to coexist as long as the Lord may tarry.
Coexist, I think. I can't stand that word. It's been hijacked by spiritualists and liberalist worldviews that, I think, simply tarnish the term. In their view, it's more about recognizing that everyone's truth is equally as valid and that we should all respect everyone's subjective choice to believe what they have, as it is what's real to them, which is just as real as what's real to me, to which I reply, "No, Karen, the dude who believes that he is a woman but doesn't have her reproductive organs or genetics (except for the breasts he had sliced into him) is not a real woman, nor as valid of a truth as mine, and definitely not more mentally unstable than me, the guy who believes in the God that defined two genders very, very clearly."
The word "coexist," as Jesus would define it, means living in peace, being loving, and not making judgment calls on people before they mature. The key component here is to stand on truth, which is objective in its belonging to God and coming from God. We live peaceably among the Gentiles but do not partake of their idolatry, fornication, moral depravity, tomfoolery, cultism, and "all that jazz." In doing so, you might just be able to see that the one you thought was a weed turned out to be a wheat, and because you didn't take the scythe to them and cut them down because they disagreed with you, attacked you, or hurt you, you gained a brother or sister. Because we were kind in our speech, patient in our laboring, and ultimately working in love so that we could better the world we're in, not count it out as a lost cause, someone was able to see the love of God and that predestinated wheat was called, justified, and glorified (harvested), all the while we thought it was a weed.
I suck at this. I am terrible at keeping the fruits of the Spirit fruiting. Sometimes I wonder to what level I am to blame for my behavior (I am entirely to blame), because of how hard it is to deal with people these days. How do you convince a man that he's a man when he legitimately believes that he's a woman? So much so that he believes if you do not support his views and call him a woman, you are murdering him -- committing genocide against the transgender race, a ludicrous statement in and of itself. How do you communicate reasonably with someone like that, over and over, on and on, all the while they are accusing you of being a murderer and hating your guts? How do you speak to someone in a cult who is so brainwashed they can't comprehend the fact that William Branham said women don't have hemoglobin, which is literally one of the quickest Google searches you could ever do to disqualify this man's entire ministry, all the while they're accusing you of being demon-possessed, controlled by a witch, or taken over by Satan? Not to mention the whole "holier than thou" complex that leads them to quite passively declare, "Eh, you just couldn't live the life. You love sin too much, and that's why you left the true faith."
Yes, Pastor Meanie Poopoo Head, I left William Branham's Message to go sin as much as I wanted to all the way to Hell by... serving Jesus?
People tend to not think about that part, the whole "I live this life because I love Jesus" thing. I'm not projecting; I recognize I'm at fault for forgetting this as well. You see, the issue is never sincerity; the tension is in the question: "Who is sincerely right?" Who is objective, can justify their beliefs with evidence, and can come to the conclusions that are reasonable, real, and life-changing? This is the hardest thing about talking to Catholics, who have been my most recent grievance and test of fruit. How do you reason with someone about their faith when their pride is so palpable, their mind so hijacked that, in most cases, when you come to reason with logic, clarity, Scripture, history, church fathers, long-form content, short-form content, kindness, harshness, steel-manning, and oversimplifying, at the end of the day, no matter what you do, you get one of two responses:
1. You're an idiot.
2. You're a heretic and also you're an idiot.
The hard part is they mean this, sincerely. They are zealous for what they believe, and are particularly blinded by the spiritual scales over their eyes. Most people in false doctrines are this way. They are also extremely sincere, devoted, and loyal. Most people in life are, too, at least to whatever they deem legitimate; the problem is that most people are also sincerely wrong. Even I, a brilliant mind of my time (who is kind of an idiot sometimes, I'm ngl), can be sincerely wrong. I can have a lapse in judgment, misread a scripture, or let my emotions get the best of me, thinking I was justified when, in reality, I'm convicted and condemned by God's judgment (in the courtroom sense, not the "you're going to Hell now because you sinned" sense) just a little later. I can't tell you how many times I've felt bad for being a jerk to Catholics, cultists, or leftists who, despite insulting me literally every time I post, serve as a reminder that I am supposed to have some self-control. This is particularly true for the Romans. If I were to ratio it out, I would say for every insult or nasty jab I make at Catholics, I receive about 50 in my direction on all platforms. Yet, that 1 that I let slip haunts me for days.
Why?
Because I decided I could play Judge, that I was the reaper sent to cut down these weeds well before the harvest. It's then I think to myself, What if this person could have been brought to Christ, but now you just ruined it? What if they go to Hell because of you?
See? Things really aren't funny in 2026, especially when you factor in everything else going on in my head. Maybe I should stop doing ministry. I think. Maybe I should give it up and step away. If I can't keep myself from vengeance from even one person, then I'm a hypocrite for all the rest. The hard thing about it is that the ministry is one of the only things keeping me going, right now, as I feel like it gives me some sense of purpose. Still, it's like that purpose is slowly getting warped and twisted as I fail and fall to more and more of the principalities sent my way, and those suckers know just what to say to make me tick, too. "You're an idiot," "I've heard better arguments from a moron," "You have undiagnosed autism, and also you're retarded."
[He's wrong, by the way: I have diagnosed autism, so HA! Take that, random Catholic guy who blocked me shortly after saying those super godly words that were very edifying.]
It's like the demons (not the Catholics) know my weakness: To be like my dad. Try to identify those insecurities and really drive the knife in deep. I find that so bizarre because it seems like the apologetics for Catholics are literally to bully you into believing in their religion. What they don't know is that they could never abuse me worse than my father or the men I grew up with in that cult. They are quite literally nothing in comparison -- jokes compared to the monsters that lived under my bed.
So jokes on them, I guess?
I can't judge him too harshly, though, because even if I've never said anything that mean, I have been mean, at times. Just the other day, I mocked this dude using baby-speak, talking to him like he was a toddler because he insulted my intelligence while simultaneously missing the point that I was making in my video, proving that he was projecting and not actually making a valid argument or criticism, which, ideally, would lead a teacher to bridge the knowledge gap rather than be a jerk about it.
I chose to be a jerk about it.
Condescendingly, I simplified my argument to its basic formula while talking to him as though he were being spoon-fed applesauce in his high chair. I'm pretty sure it actually hurt his feelings because his response was pretty sheepish... and that was the point. I wanted him to feel bad, look bad, and feel stupid, because that's how I felt. I might know that it's not true, but it doesn't change how I feel. After hearing the same nonsense fifty times, dealing with everything I am in my personal life, and working through what I have been for a while now, I finally snapped. Shortly after, two people (one a subscriber of mine on YouTube and the other some random guy) both convicted me by rebuking me and reminding me that I'm supposed to be fruitful despite being insulted, misunderstood, and attacked for literally everything I post.
They were right, and that ate at me. It's still eating at me.
I hope that dude is okay. If you're by some random, God-ordained chance reading this, guy on YouTube who I mocked by talking to you as though you were still in diapers, I am legitimately sorry. I was having a bad day. That's not an excuse, I'm just explaining, and I think that goes to the heart of the issue: I've been having a lot of bad days. I can't remember the last good one. The one where I smiled, was proud of myself, and was happy.
Heck, I'm going to publish not one, but three books (technically) this year, and you know what? I don't feel anything. Something that used to make me so excited now leaves me with apathy, and as the days go on, that apathy grows, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I'll think to myself, Man, I wonder how Mom and Dad are doing? I wonder if they would be happy to know that I published my book, which I've been working on for years. Then I remember that even before they were left behind in the cult, when I still had a relationship with them, they didn't care much about my books anyway. In fact, most times it felt like there was a slight tinge of jealousy or animosity, so in all actuality, I can't tell what I'm missing. But I miss something. I grieve something. Maybe not so much what was, but what could have been.
Either way, every day I end up grieving something new.
Last month, I tried wonton soup for the first time—the cheap kind you get at that generic Chinese food place we all have in town (you know the one). Historically, I have always hated it, but I got it because it was and probably still is my mom's favorite soup, and I wanted to try it to see what she felt when she ate it or why she liked it so much. That's what missing someone does to you, I guess. What grief does. It makes you do weird things. A few months before that, I tried Taco Bell's Mexican Pizza because it was her favorite order. At one point, she liked it so much that she ordered it every week, almost every other day, for about a solid month.
I like wonton soup now. I get it a lot, actually -- at least once every other week, because every time I do, it reminds me of her.
And this is how my life goes for everything. Things I once hated, I love, and things that I loved, I now hate. My life has become wonton soup in that way, and in the soup's hidden realities, the "substance" in the "accidents," if you will, I can see people. What was once terrible in every way is now something that I appreciate in ways I never thought I would, because I didn't see what it was or understand why it was so good... but I get it now, Mom.
I understand wonton soup.
You can't really ever know how good something (or someone) is until you get to know them. Spend time with them with an open heart and an open mind -- coexist. You'll never really know what's a wheat and a weed, but as both take time to grow, they start to make themselves more clear in their characteristics -- expose themselves for what they've always been, and even then, it is up to God to determine who is who and what is what, at the end of it all.
We're supposed to have charity in everything we do; otherwise, no matter how miraculous it is, how much it might even be edifying, it's all just a "clanging cymbal" if it does not have love (1 Corinthians 13:1). That's been hard for me, the whole "loving my enemies" thing. It's been hard for me to grieve day in and day out, having my mind eat at itself and my heart night after night, and still keep civil. All the while, for the full 24/7, all I do is mourn; I exist in existential pain, and I do not see it ending. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20, which, in some ways, gives me hope, but at my last physical, I was told my eyesight was 20/10, and a part of me wishes that could apply to the future.
But it doesn't. We're finite beings in an infinite Creator's plan, and that means that there will (naturally) be limitations. Thankfully, despite the limited time we have on earth, there is no time limit on grief. I suppose it never really goes away, but gets easier to handle, in my experience. As you work your way through its five or seven stages (depending on how you look at it), you learn to manage the vortex of it all.
That's what it is, you know? Grief. It's a tornado of feelings. They're not linear, and sometimes you feel more of them at once, but above all, it's volatile -- it tears you apart, destroys everything, and that's what's been happening to me over the past year. My soul has become the next best Tornado Alley, uniting my different states of being as I face the storms. Sometimes they'll pass, at least for a little while, but just when I think the storms are ending, another whirlwind touches down, and it all begins again.
I saw this video the other day where a guy put a cup of coffee with the words "me:" next to it under a running water faucet, showing that the water would (eventually) fill the cup and wash away the coffee. The caption above had read, "time heals all wounds," and yet, as he's recording, someone offscreen reaches in, pouring a cup of coffee back into the cup, with each entrance into frame accompanied by a word beside it: "another tragedy," "unexpected bills," "the world ending," and on and on. It was meant to be funny, but as the meme lord before us had said (and we must remember), skubalon ain't funny.
I related to the video. So much has happened and changed over the past year. It's been exactly one year since I left the cult, and at the end of it all, I really do believe I got the short end of the stick. I was the one who ended up alone, who lost everything and everyone. I took all the risks on that terrible day, deciding to free as many people as I could from the Message's grasp, and, thankfully, it worked (for most of them). I am the one who is alone, physically, but am haunted by them, mentally. The memories of it all, and everywhere I go, that's what I see: the ghosts. I see the faces of all the ones that I loved inside the cult, and even though I know that they hurt me, threw me aside like nothing, that I'm no longer even human to them, I still want what's best for them. I want them to make it home, to know Jesus like I have gotten the privilege to.
But why?
Maybe this is the part of God's light in me, that heart that He knew before it all. That supernatural empathy that I legitimately can't explain, though I'm sure there's some skeptic out there who can tell me it's some neurological-chemical reaction that's causing me to have psychological attachment issues or something. Personally, if it is all just evolution and primordial soup from star farts, then I am currently waiting for the survivalistic reason for why I mourn people who are alive, to the point that I wish I wasn't alive to feel it, as good for my survival. How irrational acts of altruistic impulse (primarily putting our lives in danger) are meant to be an evolutionary strength.
Whatever. That's not the point of this essay. The point is that I care more about people who hate me than I do myself, and that's odd to me. The mean-spirited Catholics, cultists, liberals, and Pastor Meanie Poopoo Head are all on the naughty list, but I don't want them to stay there. I want "Santa" to put them on the good one.
I want to see them when I meet Jesus.
They're not all wheat; they're not all tares; they're like wonton soup, and I really hope there's wonton soup in Heaven. And even though I can't see them, I see them. They're there in my mind as I relive the good days. I see the smiles and the laughs, not the venom nor the fangs. Maybe that's how you strike that balance, I think, that chord of harmony that God reminds us of relentlessly. To have grace and truth (John 1:14), which is to stand on the Law but not forget the mercy that we have since the Son of Man came. To remember that wheat and weeds are so hard to discern.
And there's that word again: Hard. Being a Christian is hard, and though I know that there's no one else I could go to except Jesus, it doesn't change the fact that walking with him is hard.
"It's a hard saying," I repeat. "I'm still trying to figure out who can hear it."
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