2023-03-28 A Meditation on Oddly Oriented

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Pe 1:6–9 ESV)

The odd outcomes of faith are a reminder that to believe is to beckon grumbling. It is to dwell solo-style at a place we sought, but that still is not quite something easily boasted of. Yet also we are given the Holy Spirit, as Paul the Apostle was (2 Co 12:9), to give longevity of that inkling of faith that is sufficient, length of days lived in a strange hope. We live in a strange hope because we have turned around and discovered and rediscovered the daily routine, whereby our panicky or self-loathing or unhealed former self is from Above nurtured, given words to pray, given an ingredient new and designed for us: that oddly-lived life, that place minus accolades, that war met piecemeal-style, one day at a time. The layers of healing meeting the layers of unspeakable pain and attack. For we languish.

We languish but have a certain all-sufficiency of our faith walk, causing us to grin at times, causing us to celebrate, causing us with helped tears to mourn. Our tears are helped by God. God sees us brave, sees our bravado, and without hesitation reworks and rewires our seat of being. We are facing an impossible bind; He applies that conscious realization to a long hidden injury or once-upon-a-time existential slam against our loved, beloved souls.