2023-01-15 A Meditation on Theism and Servanthood
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Ro 8:37 ESV)
In the wider view, there is an Authority. There is some earnest sense to this madness called life. However, He does not fancy our lives any more than our innate goodness. He fancies our goodness because we are hands and feet in the world; He sees us go the way of His own Cross, dying, in hope, believing in a Resurrection. So a first principle, for the one who would today be recruited to the Lord’s army, is that He exists on the other side of a death.
On the other side of a fear of dying. Putting paid to the illogic that doubts because God isn’t intervening to spare us our Crosses. He proves His existence not by sparing His people their crosses, but by using all things together for Good. If we’ve coped with the fear of dying, we are angelic in nature now and fit to believe. We are fit to serve in servant guise. We are fit to warm up to the exercises and drills of a Long View called Faith.
That long view forgives the Lord His utility and use of each of us to accomplish a Greater Good. We are consigned in gladness to something, some service, some intelligent and actionable plan, that motors our cart forth into the realm of spiritual energies, nirvanas, deeds done in faith, in dying faith.
The friend, the colleague, the letters of recommendation, come in a scheme or heist called mutuality: we are mutually assured of existence “out there” just as we are assured of a soul and heart “in here”. We know we are now sensitive and alive, because we have a God who cherishes our inner hearts. We know we are recruited to serve, because this our friend has done the pick-me-up thing and made the brave and daring arm extended in service, in hope, in prayer.
Recruitment is maddeningly trust-based. We trust we have this job and career, even if we are meek or silent to talk about it. In the great illogic of life, the best things are worth the doubts that come alongside; they are worth the questions as to what-al we’re doing with our lives and our time. We serve in the Lord’s army as intel and analyst, as servant and soldier. We have peanuts to point to, little to advertise, until one accepts on faith that these things and more are true.
It is true that the Lord has a full-time career for us, one that begins with the simple proclivity to prayer. If we pray, He purrs in approval. If we form bonds of friendship, His gladness is a reward. If we teach and speak and educate, His heart is warmed. Yet in all of this, His Spirit is one of the embedded and forward position; little can be accomplished, or rather, the victory is in a deep inner courage that He is counting on. The Lord counts on us to discover, invent, recover, the very definitions of the faith walk. He counts on us to bloom in season, in some mysterious way only visible to the one consigned to a spiritual vision. His vision is spiritual, Christian, yes, but emphasizing like Jesus did the psychology of fatherhood and motherhood, of sanctity of life and spiritual health, friendship, a pat on the back, a good self image. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.