2023-11-15 A Meditation on Phraseology
“10 For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.” 11 For by people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people, 12 to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear. 13 And the word of the Lord will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.” (Is 28:10–13 ESV)
To put phrase to metal, phraseology, line by line, item by item, the things that keep us warm. Phraseology is an embedded phenomenon of the Christian soldier, who speaks, who vibes, who rhymes and who endears her or his soul to the phenomenon called Fellowship. With words. With capable and copacetic language. With phrase and rhyme. With all awkward gesticulations now safe in that hallowed realm called Faith.
For we speak and others are blessed, upbuilt, and knit to each other. We speak and others are edified, transformed, healed. We speak and mercy is availed upon us. The metal bedrock, the pedal to the metal, the foundations murmured around, with words that surround and that build up: these foundations are a gladsome discovery, a winning reveal, an unmuddled find.
To be soldier of a tribe that fears not any dying days but serves alongside each other in glad self-sacrifice for the betterment of our peer. This is no planned persuasion, but rather it is freely given and freely received. That we be immune to the ravages of a sinister faux religion, that sinister religion that tries to badger us, to trap us, to encapsulate our aspirations of spiritual inclination. That knows not, or forgets absently, the day of small things, an experience of Grace that translates, that transfers all affections unto our God and Savior, replicable yet no impatience to replicate, longing simply for Him to know what we now know, the He is Lord and we His people.
People knowing the cold steel of our sadder job descriptions, some kinds of soldier, yet ones with corner turned, glad and joyous to know He is a fighting Jesus, a warhorse Lord, who changed the hearts and minds of His people in order that they in time would change the hearts and minds of a population. With glad service. With point illustrated and theme enunciated. Here we all are. Trained, yet not impatient. Strong, yet not bellicose. Murmuring, yet not insane. The sad insanity so-called because the soldier flies into crazy danger, is not insanity, it is our deity, it is our Lord on His urgent Cross, which Cross healed all future generations of the need to replicate, yet replicate so many did and have. Which Cross He fled to, coaching Himself or by the Holy Spirit, through doubts and fears.
Vain fantasies surround, spiritual warfare alights upon, our daily persuasion and lilt is safeguarded so as to preserve us from the regretted word or the sad action disorderly. So much seems to cubby-hole us or create a personal stage for war to unfurl its bellicose banner. We nonetheless know a Peace that passes understanding, and are no fools for lesser digs. We fear not to speak wrong or act in error. We fear not to betray a personal fright, little fears, solemn anxieties, around this our flight, our Cross that we run to. We can do all things through Him who went before; we are programmed, not automatons but willing enactors of what code and instruction set we’ve imbibed. This is us: capable, self-sacrificing, reverent, replicators and those acted upon by others, which others love us, which others are motoring along with no vain intentionality, but by the External Spirit who guides. By the Holiness that intoxicates. By the Grace that persists. Today, let us know that fellowship and that call to Courage and Honor and Presence of Mind.