2022-11-09 A Meditation on a Soldier’s Narrative

““All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.” (1 Co 10:23 ESV)

The soldier carries in his or her heart a whole narrative. This is the narrative, furtively seen, fleetingly appreciated, that bespeaks Peace. It is Peace because without respite Man is fighting. Fighting because no calm nor agreeable nature can erase sin’s trials. Sin tries us because we have higher ideals and better dreams, thinking the Good Promises of Jesus to have inducted us in to a Grace walk, a Calm foray, a Here and Now livelihood.

Instead, we are learning the angst and the ineptitude at saying “No” to some things; little things, trying and testing symbols, which bespeak bigger things. We are sore-pressed but do not give in. We are tested, but do not submit. We have submitted to a Greater God who nonetheless is in the trenches with us today, as fleeting passions or appetites eventually and in good form go blank, go ghost, go absent, go empty.

No longer deliberating and pining in our inner Man or inner Woman, today we say that for a season all was haywire, appetite raging, negotiations made at some high table where we were obstinate and petty and begging for simple indulgences. No, we have to reason with our own higher narrative: we wish to be called Holy. We are the ones choosing the fast and the abstinence from baser things. It is us we are fighting with, we ourselves, as much as God.

And God Himself knows the power of guilt, the post-participation depression and concession: I was too weak for it, after all. See how I ruined myself! Any thought of holiness is swept under the carpet and lost. However, we plead with our inner selves: one day, you shall be stronger at these things, but this day you are called to use your trials to learn not higher holiness but higher mercy. If you fell away in minor things, let that indulge you into higher things: mercy, grace, gospel, creatureliness.

For as creatures we are beloved and in need. The fighting is too real, the inner constitution just off the high of Gospel ministry, wants to see itself logical and rationally designed. The inner constitution wants things just to go with the flow a bit.

Instead, we are called to face a kind of brokenness that the word “broken” is too good for. It is a brokenness deeper than simply the familiar confession “All of us are broken”. Good. But have you coped and encountered that this brokenness is against all good order and against our higher designs and purposes and plans? Have you seen this “brokenness” become big and important enough to warrant a pause and a stop-order right here and now? Now, because the fighting is real. Fighting, because we wanted to ease into a mantra, as though a mantra about how “broken” we are could have the power to save. No, we are broken as though unformed and unshaped and unresolved; today we need to focus just on giving wings to such a notion: we are winged to fly above the fray of a soul in unfathomable need. We find it moot now, whether we eat the sweets or miss the day’s routines of clockwork. It is moot because we have to go with the Grace and the Gospel; we cannot rely on the deeds.