“12 For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. 13 For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand and I hope you will fully understand— 14 just as you did partially understand us—that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will boast of us as we will boast of you. 15 Because I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a second experience of grace. 16 I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea. 17 Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time? 18 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. 20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. 21 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. 23 But I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming again to Corinth. 24 Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith. 2 For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. 2 For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained? 3 And I wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all. 4 For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.” (2 Cor 1:12-2:4 ESV)

Sin is not inevitable; it is up to us to change course. Sadly, too often we are in a game mode most inflexible, scarcely holding on it can seem (though Christ holds us close), and therefore somewhat frantic, too methodically repetitive, saying perhaps “I got this” but secretly hoarding, granting nothing flexible, barely keeping the game on.

This is no rhetoric designed to spell or capture a particular outcome; it is a reflection that we can wake up on the other side of the bed, sometimes. We can be amenable when the sands of time begin to roil, and the waters to wash over us, amenable to New Day creationism, God making life spring forth Abundantly. Have you ever done a radical deed, and been sleepless in the strange new existential Frame: I can’t undo what I’ve done, but if I could, would I?

Thus the devil is right beside the would-be Saint right unto their denouement or Judgment Day sublime. The devil makes mountains out of mole hills, and makes strange compromises with Sin out of would-be good deeds. The devil ups the ante. The devil is front and center Persuasive hey, you sinner, nothing of Forgiveness, nothing of God’s Gospel, pertains to you personally.

Because it is exactly that Game the would-be soldier of Christ faces: you want it both ways, but our only way forth is Gospel, and everything not tuned in to this Reality, it behooves us to regret, to have horrified self-conception, to harm and be unsafe for those Near to us. Yet even that, it is perspective and imagination: so close to something Good happening, we see all kinds of Bad.

And we see what we want to see: strapped in, inflexible, barely holding on yet patting ourselves on the back for rejecting in inflexible permanence, old Lucifer and his wiles. It is pitiable. We will die an early death from stress, perhaps. We don’t have Experience with those waves washing over the mind, minds not near to medical strokes but buying into ten years of life extended, so good was the Humor, so loving the Rebuke, so patient the parental Attitude, Unction.

Like that, and the whole world has changed on a dime: the militant, who arrests finally the other side’s Strongman, Goliath, Bothersome Spirit. And then in this moment of truth, all the universe does seem to revolt or revolve or simply Change Course, in ways we scarcely know but to hold on for dear life through. We did something, didn’t we. And it changed course.

Perception is a spiritual gifting not quite recorded in the Bible, but it is some “hot-and-cold” query zone: back and forth, the Saint ponders silently “what is the outcome of such-and-so? Was my outlay correct or no?”, and warm and cold, spirit responds in approving Purr, or in cold and fright zone: “don’t do That!”. Because we have trained up in the art of prophecy, perhaps, and in that speak of Devil nearby: every spiritual aspect of our world, can be used for ill. The devil can do miracles. The devil can show signs and wonders. The Saints only question, therefore, is to discern the spirits, test them, see if they know Christ’s Cross. Start, O sinner, with you the chief of sin.

Sacred and secular, cruciform and works-based. The Sacred-Secular divide spells a way forward always available to the Sinner: in possession of the Good Book, in some Sacramental sense of having gotten Near to the trauma and the ill-begotten Memories. Everything then did seem to change, upon making that confession, nay, upon making it then slowly unpacking it, meditating on what we are saying, all things told. Bearing untold Mistakes, Errors made, because it was Near to the solar body, near to the confluence of planets and comet’s tail.

Magic tricks and strange opposites day: we are strangely debating very important First Principles, and doing so carefully because of the man or woman on the Ledge, ready to jump, holding the community Captive to a very different kind of Gospel. Some truth in both? Some sense in which the Freudian, the Mechanistic or Formulaic reduction of life or strange—licensed strange—focus on the psycho-sexual, this being some ministry more direct—licensed—towards Healing in that Good Name called chastity, called going verbally where no man or woman dares go, the pain, the healing unction, the colorful License from the pulpit to do things a bit differently ‘round here.