2024-08-20 A Meditation on Service

“16 I repeat, let no one think me foolish. But even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. 17 What I am saying with this boastful confidence, I say not as the Lord would but as a fool. 18 Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast. 19 For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! 20 For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. 21 To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that! But whatever anyone else dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. 24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? 30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. 32 At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.” (2 Cor 11:16-33 ESV)

To embrace Actual and Persistent thought, is a strange allowance, intrigue, input, arisen thought found whilst embracing caution, prayer, silence, frightening question marks as to our fitness, our sobriety, our willing Submission and Duty. Yet, it was Christ who moved Beyond calmer evocation, searching, submission, to a reality Prone with Grace and Prone with Lifeform and Prone with Ecstasy. He literally had no time for a perfectionist lifeform or situation or repose. He literally could not allow haste and magnanimity of information to Speak and Instruct and Calm and Hold: all these things awaken the soldier to understand, that the Individual is called to Rise Up successful and duty-bound, heartening and unaffected, unaffected by the frightful narrow juxtaposed Experiences and Quieter Influences. Those are too orderly for the actual Urgent Call to juxtapose, Urgent Call to speak in nearly cuss-words at just how Real and Urgent is the game.

We are soldiers of an angular way Forward, an obtuse manner Situational, a certified Reactivity, a reality posh and situationally-aware, up to a point: we are not lazily assuming God will do the trick for us. Though Inspired unto visions of His duty and boldness, it also calls on us to be angular and servile, dutiful and Aggressive unto that bolder Reaction upon a discovered Void. Go for it, young servant, young soldier, young dutiful one. No longer fear the waking dream or waking calm dissection: the fear of being somehow too self-aware or greed-driven or falsely-peaceful: these things we say “Bosh!” to and Accept and Bless and Know: no situational repose of sleepiness and peace can quite meet the need for Duty and Response and Action.

All this to say, the good soldier is awoken and Risen like Christ to know the end of that sleepy faux peace, but no guilt or impossible reduction therein, no resolve whiney or too sleepy-headed: we awaken beyond the status quo, beyond the all-things-work-together, to be Angular and Beguiled, Servant-Minded and Dutiful. We are fussing and aggressive to grab onto something not sleepy nor ill-resolved, not falsely at peace or claiming a quietness unperturbed: we are Awoken and Dream-Ridden no longer, today gladsome to exchange Personality and Reactivity to one another, because we are called to Delight and Awaken and Serve and Bless in those waking, non-superstitious around dreams, hours.

Let it be, no fright that we are too beguiled by a false peace, but an excitement that it is genuine Call rather than our wishful thinking, genuine Servanthood rather than our falling away or falling asleep, embrace of a Master who beckons us home but also unto Service that strikes a pose with His gifts and Service.