2023-01-21 A Meditation on Living Through It

“For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.” (Mt 24:21 ESV)

A few cards short of a deck, the faith as played out troubles the conscience, because we were certain that our faith was the correct and true. Then came the encounter, where we were scared and worried that we weren’t recipient of God’s goodness. No matter: this failure of our faith to reassure in those stark hours, is built into Jesus’ own example on the Cross. He doubted and despaired. He died for our sins. He put paid to all man’s pride.

Man is proud to think that God somehow “owes” us a livable faith. We stare down the rabbit hole of panic attack or close encounter, and know this, that we shall make it. Make it, yet through such turmoil as we never would have imagined. Make it, yet minus all pride in how functional and “good” our religion is. We assumed our faith must have power to save, and then in that stark hour we learned the dice are a bit more loaded against us than we might have wished. Life is harsher. Salvation is sweeter. Until we see the storyline carried through our own crosses and doubts, life does not have “guaranteed”, “owed”, “promised”, “merry” go-betweens.

Between living and dying, between happy times and despair, between caution and assertive self-exaltation. God does not “owe” us a salvific faith. God does not “simplify” our lives just because. He does these things in His timeline and manner, to elevate us and graduate us to higher spirituality, that is, a higher-minded reaction to utter abandonment and despair: this road Plethoric I shall cross through with my marbles intact, with my sanity certain, with gratitude that God met a world in Recession and Depression, and gave light at tunnel’s end.