2023-08-26 A Meditation on Battle Joined

“25 I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, 26 for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. 27 Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. 28 I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. 29 So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, 30 for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.” (Php 2:25–30 ESV)

Battle met, battle joined: to find that one’s very composure is tuned in to the situational awareness. Where the situation is dire, health and mentalism hitch a ride. They tune in. We viscerally feel the plight, the war, the sophistry directed our way, the fight. Yet then too we rise up, made more aware and more compassionate for the brethren and the sistren. For the heavy laborers doing God’s work in this situation, this milieu, this all-hands-on-deck Call. For the prayer warriors who have gone before us. For the theorists skin thick yet hearts amiable, amenable, a divine brand and sense of trust. For we have faith in the magnetism of our own situation before the Lord; we have faith that, if others have truly experienced it, they too will be laborers under the banner of Love; they, too, are loyal and attuned, ready and willing, fighting ignorance and compromised morals as much as any petulant pride or rejection of our Gospel.

For our gospel is not rejected, but rather endeared unto, adopted, and summarized in the gladsome tidings and hearts aflame in our men, our women. The gospel is True, and this rings high heavenly bells of invite, of adoption, of escape from life’s onerous plight. Life’s drudgery, pains and sophisticated curses glancing off of us; that illness passing, the stomach no longer upset and if it ever was, then it was for simple reasons of food and drink: we grant no power to the enemy’s witchcraft, curses, mere hatred. Yes, soldier, know this day that you cannot please everyone; you will be hated, and that is no mesmerizing invite to self-destruct, but rather a plea to rest intact and in tune with your men, your women. It is a plea to have a point of pride unashamed, to know the Gospel that teaches strange and allegedly weakening things, but to us there is no weakness rather Strength.

The Gospel teaches that we are to honor in each person the Created in God’s Image mentality, whilst also no stranger to the Fallen from Grace need for a merciful High Priest and Friend and Christ. Together group-thought of a divine sort, together living for the sake of the preservation and giftedness of our peers, together found near to the Cross rather than to pent up worldly concerns and discomfort. See a genuine article of forgiveness of those sins or characteristics that embarrass and discomfit and cause shrinking away. Regain that honesty that hides no aspect of the Self, as Selves Created and embroiled in each other’s Spirit, inducted and Experienced in Grace. Whistle away the time in lockstep and urgent adherence to a genuine article of Religion, called Christ-hood, Christianity, Prophet, Priest, and King, found in each other, found in our sincere self-reflections, found in any proper telling or taling of one’s life history.