2023-02-26 A Meditation on Running Free

“But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” (1 Th 3:6–13 ESV)

There is a certain sense of running free. Always vigilant, as we run free, we tease out simple sins that do tempt, but that we have come to see from afar, to master, to graduate from, even as constant vigilance is called for. Vigilant to understand God translated what formerly was concupiscence, now to affection. What formerly was a misunderstood tendency, directly or indirectly, with foresight or without understanding our own actions, a misunderstood tendency to commiserate and to draw near. We now draw near in body still, but to pray. To “friend”, we live in community and have a wizened, distant gaze. Our physical lives are delivered unto Holy Spirit and holiness. We make the daring raid, to be affectionate, to stand up and be counted, as delivered. As washed. As calling like deep calls to deep. We have smoothed and caressed what formerly was a sloppy type of kiss, unto an appealing, determined, angular, and fighting personal sense of personal space and of presence. So we are not too clever for the day; we run free, inadvertently imbuing life with gulfs, as of that between us and Satan, as of that great divide wherein we, saved beyond belief, are still called to eat the humility and imbibe the contrition: we are to come alongside and “be there” for the unbeliever.

To run free is to have man-made, woman-made things cease, and God things begin. It is input/output, as we mediate and reflect upon what God gives to us. In this we are faithful, and like fussy children require nothing but positivity: “You said…!” being our catchphrase for any cattiness or negativity. We hone our prayer life by honing who we have come to know God to be, pure grace, always love, determined catcher of spirit and in the thicket. A lion’s mane felt in His embrace, who came down from heaven to catch and upbuild crazy and sinful Man. He knew our desire to run free, our surprise at our own pick-me-up encouragement: what things do “turn us on” spiritually, and the possibility of a mess called Law: the rule that assumes all Mankind is on a narrower track than what the truth entails, that all mankind just needs a reminder to “be chaste”, to “channel the gospel”, “channel the love”… to good use and proper receipt, proper partner and hearing receptacle, and healthsome formative bonds between the saved and between the loved and between the Called and consecrated, the citizens of heaven.