“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 Cor 1:12-24 ESV)
Optimism is effusive, doing war with the practical tokens coming down the line. Optimism bursts forth eternal, it springs up enthusiastic, it winnows and ebbs and flows around Life contagious.
Practical tokens may be a reality experience, but still we Believe: that on some hazy spiritual playing field, all that optimism really is unfolding and coming into being. Because of Christ’s visions, including that He saw Satan falling from heaven. That He saw a door opened wide for effective ministry. That He saw the work Finished on the Cross.
The Positive meets the Pragmatic, the former’s enthusiasm and optimism meets the latter’s distracting kerplunk. Yet so often, the prophetic turns out Correct: in this, you were Right and On Mark; in that, Less So and learning experience. The prophetic, meantime, means a Happy Place we go to whilst riding about town or meditating on life’s finality, on snappy correspondence undertaken, on cousins and siblings loved on, family and friends Met, distant or long lost acquaintances Exuberant over.
The inclination, then, to put up a shield and a flag, a Sign for the times, is an inclination met out as the voices say, “Yea”, and “Good”. The voices are Trained, because we have trained our bodies by fasting and by interpreting Scriptures, the latter in strange guise as having read them for the first time, and seeing so much Surface Level sense and sensibility, goodness, meaning, that is lost in strange unfounded or poorly grounded disputation and theological Debate. Simple meaning, as though reading for the first time: and this, this we demure around a bit, but That! That we embrace and call ourselves anointed Messengers of a Good Word!
The inclination to enter War is an inclination borne in the trenches of immediate Rebuke or immediate Flag-Flown: no time to receive such polemic or propaganda mildly or dispassionately. Having this conviction: that those with the most to share, these are the meek and the oftentimes Quiet. They are us, they are we: we hazard an adolescent-in-faith Boldness, that in these precious in-between times, before full Adulthood, we are haphazardly Experiencing life most authentic, and as spiritual beings we are experiencing Urgent Call to put up said Flag, don said Camo, whisper and spread news of a Vision, a half-way grown Angle and Tribe Mentality. We have this confidence in us because Christ had it in Him, no longer too clever by far but rather Pugnacious and Repellent to Evil, Quick on the Draw and Bold on the Angle met, taken, imbibed, dispersed.
Cautious Rest, too, in Faith that said “Voice” from above counsels “Good” and “Let it be”. Said Spirit counsels “Let others do their shift of service while you rest” and “Hear absolution pronounced”. For the headache of spiritual War wherein enormous movements meet with enormous temptations, to taint the ointment with a sliver of ill health, to mess up the couture with an odd plain garment, to poison the well with some hard-to-forget Enunciation. No, in all these things Christ is more potent to Overcome, to meld the sliver into gold, to dress the soldier with plain goodness, to cleanse the water with His tears and His blood now safe and clean to drink.