“25 “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” 29 His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! 30 Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.” 31 Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32 Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. 33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”” (Jn 16:25–33 ESV)

The knowledge base of the soldier in the field is equipping him or her to assess, analyze, react and act, in sapient ways. The knowledge base of the agent in the field is equipping her or him to Couch Factualities in Christian terms: God is real and good; Jesus His Son came into the world; the Holy Spirit shepherds all believers in their walks of faith. This knowledge base, any Good Man, Good Woman, is bliss and content for all she or he Doesn’t Know: the theological heft, beauty, of innocence.

Why? Grill a Christian and you will see largely Evangelized and Reformed internals of the heart, soul, and mind. You will not unseat or dissuade some Moral Insistence that these truths are the bee’s knees and the be-all and end-all of Fascinations, of Daydreams, of Prayer Life. The agent, meantime, knows a bit more you might say, like a son or daughter in a Family: how we intuit this shared experience or deduce that shared outlook. What it means to be Family named Jesus, named in the Spirit Jesus.

Indeed, spycraft and intel work aside, the Heft and Assurance of the field officer, agent, soldier, is that this is—pinch me, I must be dreaming—the Real Deal. We are no surreptitious spies but rather analysts, team-builders, inspiring trendsetters, hope dealers. We are no intel officers except for Christ. We are field officer, agent, soldier in a winsome sky’s-the-limit Aspect: after all, unspook the Self and peer in, we are Equipped and Knowledge-laden. We are Informed and Trusted. We are both Precious, Cultivated, Curated in God’s Image, and Frontline like His Son Christ was. We who know All Things, are spared the torture bed because we tell it like it is, because our “Truth” is Christ’s Truth and Truths. That He was sent, giddy delight, here, and not in the sense of giddy because clandestine and classified, secret, but Giddy because Cruciform and Meaningful and Spirit-Led and Spoken Word called His Truths.

We launch forth, mystical and Enabled, unfeeble and Stoic, Calm and Bellicose-to-a-point, against a Dastardly Denying and Unartistic enemy. Who lacks the Artifice or parable-telling skillset. Who is in an Earlier Stage of Societal Evolution. Who struggles just to lay down the arms and mitigate the threats and be vulnerable, only… is that we ourselves as well? Ought we better to put up a sign saying, “Gee wiz, I guess I’m just bashful and undeserving of your favor…” Ought we do such as this? To grovel a bit and repent publicly? Only when we try to, it only accelerates and enables, encourages their grinning sins of wanting always More. So we make our confession, with a single phrase, not grovelling but alert eyes and in earnest. And if that won’t do… we recollect next in this sequence of events, the pastor’s Absolution Pronounced. And we Move On.