2024-01-20 A Meditation on One More Thing

“12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, 13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Tim 1:12-17 ESV)

The extra bump rockets us unto what no eye has seen, what is not all logical and action-consequence, but what is a step into an agitated sequence, consequence, sequel. We cease following the perfect and me-you, us-God dualistic model, and launch anew with personal perimeters nearly breached were it not that we dive in. We embrace, the flawed temporary (that is, lasting this lifetime) haste: we are hasty because life has tossed enough wrenches into the cogs, life has upset the apple cart one time too many, life has mocked our personal quests and fasts and even our blessed submissions. All these things are mocked. All these things are stretching us thin, or rather stretching us unto a mad dash, a wild lunge, a determined study, tomorrow’s war.

Tomorrow’s war is a bargain with life that is no longer evil: we were one time calm and circumspect, peace in Believing, yet today we are haggard and worried, possessed of obsessed-over failings or of incompleteness. We were playing the game well, what hindered us (Gal 5:7)? We were responding with the words of Creed and of Faith and yes of Submission; what mocked us? What delayed us? Is it not this: that God in the Spirit asks for thus much, a little more, no: even now, a little more. A little more pain adopted. A little more languishing humility donned. A little more not abrupt but firm demand: this lifeline, this storyline, shall in no wise be perfect. It shall teach us to launch into the unknown, unto the research and discovery of a formerly wounded soul, now peace and willing to abide near, to go along with the imperfect flow, to study to show oneself accepted (2 Ti 2:15).

The last penitence is then the first morrow, the soldier’s wake-up call as though this day born for the very first time. This day, know a perfect fulfillment is meting out over and above all things past, and we have a Tomorrow War to face: suddenly Peace and Strength in things formerly puzzled over or languishing in our shed of impossibility. We were in the last issue wounded where we had most held ourselves aloft and proud of our simple abiding Peace and Capability. No: now it is all liability. Now it is all wretched Belief—if we recall—bargaining not with music of the spheres nor added logical oorah but a Crucified, hastily Crucified and even more hastily Resurrected (we insist) Savior. Already dead. Already life spent, even though His preaching plan was perfect. His miracle-working plan was peace and capacity for tomorrow, it would seem. His fellowshipping was edifying and upbuilding. Why now? Why the lunge into what is imperfect and jaded? Why the new Thesis of corruption walked back? Why, if not only so that we in our daily rhythms and routines might stop aghast and in terror at the new haste discovered: patently invested with Repose Holy and Calm Demanded, thus I shall labor while still living under the sun. With haste. With no apology rather no longer jaded mania. A controlled outlay, manic in good sense, but thus manic towards Calm. We are now the owners of this Storyline. The winner of Tomorrow’s War shall hold this parable and denouement in Trust. We shall awake, having done our dastardly deeds of merit-earning labor, again finding Peace and Promise for the hour of prayer. We are promised over, because the Peace returns on the flipside. The Peace is no longer rightly earned, but rather invested and gifted from On High.

Thus we battle submission versus authority, overweening humility versus legislative efficiency, abrupt insecurities versus imputed confidences. The Christian is more than a professional submissive: he or she is also a professional Leader, in the quieter shelter of his or her tantric operation and missive, to listen and Speak. To hear and Do. To believe and Adore. Adoration of the remnants that Apostles Past left handed down to us, the work of the Magi and the work of the Stars, the work of the borderline societal figures and the work of the credentialed centurions. All these things endear us one to another, because of Love, because of yet another would-be wrench in the game, were we not already patient for Tomorrow’s Victory: when logic and peace shall return, through no mere endeavor of our own, but through Hearing, through Gifting, through Holy Spirit Reckoning: we were bold because we were loved unto the very dirt beneath our feet. We were affected and imputed good things by the very voice of a father or mother, a God above, a reckoning and final placement: who we are in society’s big game; what is our gifting, and what our liability. All these things play together to end our give-and-take economy, and begin our haste, our determined imperfect outlay, our utter concession that we can parry no longer.

Rather than parry, try soldiering forward as those wishing a Peace yet serving a Militancy. As those no longer proud of our Peacemongering, but allotted and accustomed to the uniform of service. Because enough was thrown our way by way of trials, only then was asked yet one more thing of us. Too much. Too many lives. Too many things now unkempt. All this as we Believed unto all tomorrow’s parties, that there would be Answer and new Wondrous Environment to long for and one day to dwell in. Provided we know it comes on the flipside of our own end-of-all-things. On the flipside of that hasty insecurity or frustration or overwhelmed mind. On the flipside, where Gift External, Eternal, alights upon our frame post-mockery for our self-chosen works. No longer self-chosen, we cared even less in the final hour because we had given our all: and He, He chose to Restore us. As though Eternal Life were somehow a gift precisely allotted to the ones who have ceased to covet or brandish about their proud accomplishments. I really was copacetic and post-defeat: I really was couldn’t-care-less about any further Promises: and then He Resurrected; He tickled my fancy, He got me up to the Prize of the Hour and the Two Millenia, the Savior Resurrected.