2022-10-29 A Meditation on Living on the Edge

“Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” (2 Ti 2:14–15 ESV)

We who live in a future of the unseen, are forward and positioned, are steadfast in mind, are foraging in a vast and untapped world, are encouraged our own decisions in our own state of wisdom to make. For our reality ebbs and flows, at times abundantly clear, and then shown to be antagonistic and inimical to a common variety of spirit, a contrary mood or definition of the times we live in. Yet, like surveyors and prospectors of gold, we know an expansive Today, no apologies for the morrow, as we are first on the scene, and do remain steadfast by the Lord who carries us.

So this Calling, this Service, this Enlistment, suits us to be tried by inimical and jocular spirits. Indeed, many are those who, attending church dutifully, are too weak in their own spirit to lay down the common parlance and Believe. For, to believe is to dwell in a hereafter, certain that as each one even for a moment does hear the Good News of Jesus’ Gospel, that souls are plinking into that heavenly collection plate, that it is understood, hey, not everything is group-think and inoffensive. No, the gospel is offensive to the status quo, and offensive to any eyes blearied by the host’s sin. The host of those eyes, the full person, is wearying the cause by trying to accommodate multiple interpretations, one interpretation tolerant of empty sins, and the other seeking to accommodate this their fighting sister or brother, whose doctrine and creed is no delay rush to the fight.

So we take that bold stand, Peter’s walk on water (“Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”” (Mt 14:31)), a concession simply to the fact we are reasoned and fact-finding even in our spiritual matters: we are unapologetic about the rationality and sensibility of what today we believe. Indeed, it became sensible and rational precisely as a hood was pulled off, as a curtain was ripped in two, as mud was washing out our eyes. So we are wise as to the guise and wiles of an enemy, but not apologetic for dwelling in this our soldiering, forward, liminal, understanding, and peace-loving front.

Here we dwell, encountering a God no-joke at war. Our God is not magically levitating above all concerns “down here”, but recruits us with a haste and hushed word: “See the battle lines; your input CAN make a difference!” So it is offensive to the one who wants to work for Power: our power is persecuted and hated, and truly this day lives may be spent by our indecision and quandary of soul; yet souls are not lost, by that great Shepherd in the Sky. So we hope, and so we see time elapse until we arrive at that loving gesture and gentle arms: this one, too, for all their failure and sin, is loved. And loved by a God who is bowed down with the fight, who ought to be tall for us yet this day is heavyset with armaments, things we had consigned to man’s empty warring; but here is our Savior racing to the scene of the crime in This world, This epoch, This era, This season, This fight. And fight, He does, that we might induct ourselves all the more graciously into a certainty, that each is saved not by money nor might, but by a caring word in season; our words matter, and ultimately we learn thus to use them for good and to upbuild, and to point the way to a more heavenly ending. Ultimately we have that baseline of understanding that, hey, positive vibes can process and derive from our gladness at seeing the brethren and sistren, at our worked-over fields wherein the Gospel is planted, and nursed unto full maturity. That Gospel we know when we hear it, and do hear the Call to meet all comers where they are and with full gladness of heart.