“2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. 9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. 12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” (James 1:2-18 ESV)

Some self-preserving calm or distraction: amped and ready to go takes a break in the name of ennui, worry, the “glue” holding us together suddenly low-key, demure, and we… not quite depressed but anxious and eager for the Quality-and-Form to return. Return the calm excitement. Return the edge-of-seat Readiness. Return the blissful mental energies, trip, daydream and calm Excitement Factor. Yet in all this, we are Humbled by the glue being more than is within our grasp to order about, to coach, to turn on and off like a spigot. We need the downtime. We need the safe readiness or calm demeanor wherein all is slightly blunted in terms of calm Excitement Factor.

The soldier’s Merits as dependable, as reliable, as safe to trust: these are weaned out and eeked out in no vacuum but in Game Day survey, test taking, monitoring, and Observation. What we are, as Christians, is therefore let us first say, a mellifluous new arrangement, calm and prize-winning new arrangement, Wisdom Received and Tutelage Undertaken, because the childish things are behind us, and Forward-Thinking Newness lies ahead. The wild flights of fancy. We have learned that the “Law” only creates its opposite. It is difficult for us to be both mistrusted, doubted, and personally Moral and Good-to-Go. We try and be good to go, but if others doubt and slander us, we think less of ourselves, at times.

The soldier deals very visibly, immediately, with the temptation to Fail. With the notion that come Big Things, Trying Hours, that we must and ought to Fail. We forget the sanity check on our outlay: “How would a judge look at this? How does The Judge look at this?”. We set up a means and way for our own Failure. But all this just to Coach: that it is Amazing those error zones we Avoid and Encircle Safely. It is amazing all the ways we Haven’t Fallen. It is simply Amped and Ready all those ways we danced the right Number and Laid Out the right Outlay.

To the soldier’s plain Prayer for a Normalcy, for avoiding those utterly Compromised concessions to inimical thinking. To this plain Prayer we simply Observe, that no war is an excuse to lose basic dignities. No war is an excuse to go all belligerent and untamed in our speech. No war is an excuse to concede we are Animals and nothing more. More, those things we Fight For, these things are to be patiently Owned by that easily mind-shifted Soldier. That mind-shift, the glue or substratum that can overween and bore to death, that Stuff is ours to coach and walk through, in all confidence that Game Day will Return. That Amped will Coach us Again. That we have so much Duty, to bear with the impatient or solemnly quiet days. That our boredom factor, sitting in a forward watch post, is a call to Remember the Mission, that God and the Drill Sergeant place us as Most Valuable Players in positions where—blame the failings of even the most modern technologies—we are asked to Sit Tight and Pray. Where the best in our midst are asked to Wait. To Delay. To do all this while not losing sight of Readiness. Yes, son, daughter, the war is real. Yes, these days were long prophesied about. Yes, you still ask for and sign up for More: for Engagement most personal, Army of One and all. While your better angels are patiently prayerful for Peace. Because we do not delight in any conflict. We do not actually Want the unsurety, the confusion, the danger, the escalation. We are patient and all-knowing at least as to our Owned Responsibilities, each monitored and Owned. 

We pray for that satanic Enemy who is goaded or frustrated, who is Compromised in ways that give a fake Advantage, but not a lasting Peace. We trust our own Instincts and Received Wisdom, will bear the weight of Duty in ways well beyond our own comprehension or chess-move play. And those who don’t play the chess game, they completely fail to appreciate the subterfuge, the possibility or rather the stratagem, called deceit, called hidden protector and hidden coach. Our coach on High, He has His reasons for the—call it no longer subterfuge, for it is done in God’s eyes with innocence—playing as though behind enemy lines. The spycraft, the sincerity of a handshake but reality of Checking, these things come second nature to us, who hear a dull boast most loud, of things simply not true. Yet they make the claim, to have made Bank, to have Owned the Hour, even if they prove wrong, their adherents will be so compromised already as to have to stay the course of sin a bit longer. Fracking. Plundering. False Confidence, and sadly false confidence not leading to Redemptive, Peaceable, Humane outcome. We seek that Truth that both arms the Lamb with a sword, and adheres to the high Morality that glues society together.