2023-08-20 A Meditation on Flatlined By Temptation

“2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (Jas 1:2–4 ESV)

Flatlined, the right to call oneself a Christian does not rest in some adjustment, a little more good deeds and presto, done and done. The paradox of the faith is that both life calls us unto owning up to the entire churchy endeavor (as churches worldwide are persecuted) whilst also reminding us we are far from deserving.

Flatlined, the right to parry forth, sabers at the hilt, drawn and ready, is a gusto minus self-righteousness: dreams bring us to a tempted plateau, to some (mis)understanding of faulty relationship or lust or convenience. How, if our subconscious is so eager to play, does our better mind and soul thrive, ever becoming “Saved”? How is the waking hour any different? How, are we both to shoulder boldly the Name-claiming, the signature on dotted line, as those noble souls who take the blame of “Christian”, those soldiers who see home and place of worship mobbed and burned, destroyed and hated? Who are we to claim as much, when the devil has taken us to the mat, wrestled us to oblivion, hated upon our claims to saintliness, ended our boast, mocked our claims, teased our simple lifestyle?

Ennobled, the right to parry instead comes from a Saint who has gone before us, cheering us, faithful to us through our winnowing and witchy hour, who knew temptation but was no-nonsense, no-obsessive fault-finding, simply certain God was using His trials to make a picture more complete: all dream and fantasy is life upon life; all error is a marriage unconsummated on some level yet pride and life on another level: we consummate at a distance and minus the adulteries, weeping and headshaking at just how hacked our subconscious can become; wondering if we need restrain ourselves from social engagement if this is its flatlined fruit.

Of course not. Of course, the question mark of the midnight awakening, the fright at an end to moral qualities, does have a counterpoint: our plainness and natural safety of waking thought, dreams unable to tempt, patience the fruit of our prayer. The sense of “this is only all natural and tempting” meets its waking counterpunch: “This is not me”. It is not some discovered pains of willing the sins, some arena of convenient forgetfulness. Instead, it is time to hasten because we are tempted precisely as we are Called and our presence is needed. Even as we ask ourselves if we deserve the label of “Christian”, we are called to the plate, up at bat, strangely empowered (would that only we would count our empowerment with equal gusto as we find fault with our sin).

The soldier therefore makes atrocious mistakes, mistaken prayer, wrongheaded compliments, frustrated testimonies, and simple negation of those qualities that Faith imbues, those things Faith attributes, those ways Faith strengthens. The soldier pats him or herself on the back by way of congratulating that here one has arrived, intact, wondrously, mesmerized, glad and happy at the trials that come. And when necessary, confessing one’s sins precisely as vaccine and antidote to the possibility of sin entering the main stage. Not on my watch, we murmur. Not today, we elaborate upon. Not on this side of heaven, we propose.