2022-09-27 A Meditation on a Fighting Posture

“For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”” (Is 28:10 ESV)

The faith posture is a fighting posture. This is because of the watchtower that the believer mans: suddenly, where there seemed new and clear sailing, errant spirits appear, like that of the demon-possessed man revealed in the temple when Jesus stood up and spoke a few words (Mk 1:23). Suddenly appearing on the radar are spots and blemishes, strange characters, wild thoughts, tempting scenarios of an entirely new ilk. This is evidence we are doing great and going strong. This is evidence our watching and waiting is not in vain, but that the faith posture is a baptism by fire, an immersion, a rebooting, a reconsidering of all the fuss and circumstance we have lived our lives around.

That is, we are not deriving and arriving at a resolution as far as what to work on, but rather, instead of climbing that thought tower, we face bedrock challenges and new missions. The Christian is anathema to those with an unclean spirit; those so possessed, without rhyme or reason, without consciously evaluating and deciding, are swept up in said unclean spirit and do parlay and lash out. That is, we can congratulate ourselves that some good prospect is underway, some progression of things, when we’ve discovered, “Hey, that Christianity thing: I was thinking it out too much; today it is my path forward, and that with gladness!”.

Indeed, we are divorced from all our conceits of what we bring to the table; bending over backwards, accommodating, reckoning with, not our pride and accomplishment but the practical, fighting, matter at hand, we are useful, warm bodies and sympathetic minds, hands and feet unto a Lord who has thus imbued us with patience, love, fortitude, by way not of flailing command, but by example. He has treated us as grown and formed women and men, that we may aspire after the higher callings: those of freely submitted hearts, hearts and minds eager and submitted, fearing God but that with great gladness to be the peer and the co-collaborator in the mix.

That collaboration is a vision of half; use half the worldliness this day; if we are in prayer, can we use half the resting place on our good works; can we use half the dope or half the drink; can we this day, just perhaps, elevated in the spirit realm and in prayer, to find delight and peace in an otherworldly response: “You: I see you, and know you are suddenly facing trials.” Those trials are otherworldly, the unclean spirit manifesting itself because Love has wildly been bubbling to the top of the pig-pile; love has made a daring raid; love has spoken what we need, no soft blanket approval but words that evoke our own fears and reveal our own sins and do all this with no time to delay: we are not the once forgiven but those totally decrepit, and forgiven myriad times. So we clutch to our worldly things, but do allow that gentle Spirit called “Holy” to be our blanket this day, to prep us just for that simple watching, wherein strange things will come our way, name calling, bad behaviors, gaping and frustrated declarations. So the Christian, the warrior of faith, expects barebones level of functioning. New skills are of a sudden gifted to us. New things, we had no idea we could thus function, are brought to bear. All this because we are swept up in that unworldly contribution unto the milieu on all sides, unto something indeed called Love, indeed called Grace.

We make no false promises; the habitual is almost never broken, yet in the Ultimate is already slain. So we build each other up with these words, knowing that in the hereafter many will have been circumscribed and patiently delivered unto salvation from all that binds; we suddenly are among friends and neighbors again, the unclean spirit chased out, hounded to the pigs and into the sea. Yet if only someone would thus pray for us, or for our friend; if only it was known we see the Future, but cannot of ourselves heal the Present.