2023-02-19 A Meditation on Innocence Lost

“There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”” (Mk 7:15 ESV)

Probably the scariest breakage that occurs is when we feel we have talked ourself out on a limb. Perjured ourself. Said some things that can’t be unsaid. In the simplest sense, we were once innocent of crimes and misdemeanors of many a stripe that today we’ve started to indulge. And we feel we can’t undo.

Take a winsome step back, though, soldier, and believe that spiritual trials and hardship equally accompany any holy walk in Christ Jesus. We are emboldened, then in equal measure made frightful and timid. But our meek nature is no cause to apologize. Timidity is not a sentiment towards the fight before us, but rather the discovery of an inner turmoil, that we do well to ride out. We do well to boast that, just as trials are said to come, today they have come to us.

Overscrupulousness. Thinking we are forever asking after more things to repent of. Thinking sin to be a more fitting uniform than proud colors we wear when strong. Trying to please all people, and in so doing, forgetting the One Person who gives us a lens through which to see all the rest.

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Ro 8:37). Recovered innocence is an asset that can at lesser times make us feel uptight, or of too cautious a disposition, choosing each and every word out of a caution to offend or show ill background thought at work. But we are not uptight: we are in truth at that level where no longer do we fear to offend, and what words we pass over are healing and health to our audience. “For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” (2 Co 5:4).

We blabber and emote. We gesture and evoke. We were not wrong, patience assures us, to use that language or strike that tone. Only let us recollect the great joy of innocence untarnished. Let us recall the great peace of that mode of confident talk only possible via an innocence towards greater evil. For “Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.” (Am 5:13). Sometimes that is the word of the day, to keep our counsel private and hold our prayer between us and God alone.