2022-12-20 A Meditation on a Twinkle in the Eye
“All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all.” (Tt 3:15 ESV)
Existential thoughts. I’m strapped in. I’m ready for the war ahead. Hey, I wonder what so-and-so is up to? As though that had any bearing on the present situation. Yet it does. The Lord puts thoughts in our mind using some form of clairvoyance or as a medium. We learn the unspoken. We begin to believe in mind-reading. At least, we have faith that Spirit leads spirit, Man’s spirit led by the Spirit of God, to make the good companionship, to be that prayer type of person who dwelt near, on a plateau that caused the wounded and insecure to feel comfortable. Who had a “thing” going with the new recruit, because while all the world is blustering and careening about, this one had a twinkle in their eye and a sated, calmed and willing spirit.
Willing to give that healthsome greeting and warm countenance. Eager to create a space for playing together, as adults play. So, whilst strapped in our very thoughts are unto holiness. Our very thoughts are part of God’s tapestry of human prayer. We honor what comes to mind, contemplating the errant intrusions as bearing some message from On High. But also we reflect: we “made” it. By virtue of being here on the front lines, ready to drop from the back of a giant aircraft, perhaps, we have confidence that our thoughts are healthy thoughts. We have confidence that it is okay this day not to obsess: “Am I staying close enough to humility; am I bearing in mind the lost and those forlorn…” It can feel like all faith is this panicked insistence of staying near to depravity, when in fact God uses the good cheer, the post-confession, winsome example of all of us, to heal those downtrodden. So we needn’t fuss: did I remember to include my confession of sin in my statement of life, my statement of faith, my introduction as to who and where I am this day?
No matter: God uses our very foolishness to honor Him and His Son and Spirit. If we race to the office of acknowledging, “Wasn’t me; that was the Holy Spirit that did that up”, we do well; but also, we can become forced and crimped, constricted by that very thing that was supposed to be life (Ro 7:10). It is life to point Higher. It is life also to celebrate the hour, here on earth as we so find ourselves to be this day. We find ourselves to be engaged in going the very opposite of the direction of our former lives; but piece by piece we hold at a safe distance and contemplate, what things used to give us cheer and warmth. And we fear no longer to go near to those things; they are desiccated and fossilized, dried leaves, fit for display and for speaking a Word in and of themselves, that we were truly changed, not in some inevitable taken-for-granted way, but in a Divine gameplan, a play and offensive, a re-entrenchment in a position now forward and suddenly defensive. Look what Jesus has done!