2022-11-18 A Meditation on a Winning Position

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.” (1 Co 9:24 ESV)

The clamor of some winning position is loud in our ears. Are we accustomed to dwelling near the din? Near the loud opposition? Near the discouragements? Are we savvy to a devil who hides himself in banality, in things scarcely spoken of in polite company, things that make us sound imaginative or paranoid, fanciful, out in right field? For such we are, in light of that winning horse given to us in Jesus. Such we are, in light of that Spirit abundantly watering our terraces and gardens, the hidden places of the mind, the soul on fire, who dwells in unapproachable light; in whose service we this day fancy ourselve winners of a new kind, a kind not uncontested, but a kind He has promised to us that it is ours for the taking.

Therefore, in a maelstrom of loud doubts and introspection, charges of navel-gazing, of being too precious for our uniform, of being endemically a failure, not just in polite matters, but in general decency and friendliness; in these things we are more than conquerors, racing to that Cross of the One who Died that we might live, who traded His absolute, astute, calmness and prodigal decency of mind and of gesture, for the charges of a criminal. So all of us face internal and external spiritual war: it is no easy equation to see someone persecuted, wronged, denied, blighted, gamed, used; it is especially difficult when it questions our own giftedness: we are not earning that feather in the cap called Righteous; and it troubles us when, so far as we were habitually on patrol, this too would have slipped past our radar.

This hatred of the downcast. This jealousy of the innocent. This desire for what is easily coveted in the possessions of others. All of us can see the difference between gold and silver, between silver and bronze, and know that, whilst chaperoned and nursed in unpretentious digs, still there are those courses in life that immediately spell covetous desire, jealousy, wanton invitation, boasting, pride of place, and an uncircumcised, devil-may-care reinvention of all that we thought we stood for. We lose our inherited goodness, that attributed goodness that came from Jesus’ Cross. Then, since we cannot lose Him, for He loves us, we wrestle with a “Leave me alone!” that denies all the saved ones are still saved, though as through a furnace. “I’ve gone too far down this path; just spell me a bit of respite! I have no ability thus to repent of so much!”

So, back to our friend the soldier no longer innocent of war, who is not shy to be the first to speak, but also knows windows pass and storms rail against us but still the end-time is not upon us; still there is room for a second and third and fourth chance to bear witness, that is, to reassure the Judge and the Tester, that Spirit gone so Holy that it almost by necessity or accident is judging half the mankind; no malicious judge, but out of the overabundance of goodness, necessarily, some fall away to a lesser estate. Not the gold but the silver. Not the silver but the bronze. They hate themselves and want just to be left as a loser, until it is spelt plain as day that there is a spectrum, and we keep fighting to the end, regardless of time after failed time, regardless of a life that we can cuss out just so that it will forget us and let us die in peace. God is with the criminal and with the loudmouth and with the derelict of duty; our fellow or gal in the trenches has a winning laughter in their hearts as we finally ourselves sign up: they do not fault us for all the hair-raising bravery and staring down the barrel of guns, bullets flying, that they have undergone in our absence. All that is moot, water under the bridge; each, if feeling Called, is fulfilled in that output and work, and towards we the latecomer they have gladsome visage, a heart full of simple endearment and affection, a hearty welcome.