2025-03-14 A Meditation on All Tied Up

“13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Cor 10:13 ESV)

This one fell away, that one is hemmed up; to rediscover Mandate, Call, Prerogative: this is to work through the pain, function through the besotten nature, ably run right through the blight. Moreover, grace is a unique experiential type of mandate; we celebrate a relaxation, we celebrate a new reality, we celebrate More than any plain church can offer.

The plain church: this is constructed per man’s ideas, but Christ’s church is rewarding and leveling up and approaching Man, Woman, in their sickness, limbs functioning and moving this way and that for the first time in a long spell. Call me back on that Legalistic Front, call me back once I’ve Achieved Mercy! Call me back once I’ve come to an elated plateau, front office, beauteous plain sailing! I found the Gospel! I found what, after all, He was trying to bring about! That we are after all Called anew, to be pastor of the alert and provocative Variety. We are called to shepherd according to the model of a gladsome sheep, a patient lamb, a calmly edging along foal. We edge, the Law, the dalliance with something Ill: we are exploring and doing research In the Field: what, after all, are my tempting thoughts? What, after all, are my healthier innate Good Parentage, Tutelage, Reassurances that, “there, I did it, and I ain’t worried about it no longer, because it was only a passing thought; and these come a mile a minute”. I know myself to be more calm and placated or handled as Warriors returning from the front.

We are warriors returning from a compromised-at-times and locked-in-contrasting stances at times, reality: to say Bring the Temptation! Bring the more awoken sadness about said temptations, but also a Joy, that these incommensurable thoughts, these unquantifiable attacks or hindrances—hemmed up, falling away—these made us over as Men and Women of the Cloth, Men and Women of the Cross, Men and Women of the Crown.