“26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”” (1 Cor 1:26-31 ESV)

Always be kind. Always forebear. Always do the knightly, noble, service. True, the soldier has her or his own legion of what-ifs, good deeds that should immediately proceed upon liberating a people. But too the venturer, any venturer, unto the spiritual realm, knows of spiritual attack. Of hindrance having barely-arrived. Of miasmic Action unplanned, unchoreographed, unintended. Sometimes we literally ebb in and out of conscious, linear, confessional, thinking and deeds.

Sequential deeds, then, terrify and edify. Literally the dueling forces, each has grown in proportion to the proximity to right war, to good cause, to noble battle. For, we can err but though we stumble we will not fall headlong, for the Lord holds our hand (Psalm 37). Something… a mother, a father, a sibling, or neighbor, has demonstrated just how uncovetous and meek it is to be a Christian. A soldier of some guile that affords no victors, except insofar as all are Victors in the Name. 

See the meek person and see the temptation: to accumulate, always to get things right, to be responsible and respectable. Strange the ways and means, the “for whom” of Christ’s dying deed: that it is more than an instantaneous demuring. Rather, it is a Fight to the solemn death, around what Right Doctrine accompanies said meek husbandry or wifery: our doctrine attacks and is unrelenting, in hopes one long away day to have enabled—not earned, but enabled—a rest.

Our Doctrine speaks of the perils of Law, it being the next best thing we have after the Gospel. The law, that makes of the housewife’s meek savings and deeds of noble import, a crucible of good works, of Law, of solemn submission to something that in itself cannot Save. Even our best Christian collaborators, and fellows, gals in arms, are tempted to emphasize first of all missteps (don’t let them totally discourage) and second of all good deeds (don’t think they arose in a vacuum).

Good deeds arose because of, precisely since, we are Unaware of them. And on that eve of great things, we falter and boast, we get utterly discouraged and see indeed: the enemy is growing just as fast as the friend, the demon as the god, the foe as the ally. That demon, that enemy, that foe, is a doctrinaire allegiance to Good Works. It is an attempt to make a dead Creed rather than a Living Fight to the death of all false doctrine.

See the soldier, heroic to save and heroic to form and foment around Christ’s earned Resurrection Rest. See him or her punctilious, persistent, repellant, to the simpler common sense religion. What we in frustrated—it cannot heal—guise do entertain as we fall asleep at night. Or what we in ecstatic Plainness do look forward to: that friend, that god, that ally, who is not easily spooked or scared off by one boastful email or communique. We’re in it for the long haul, and we have our modicum or assembly of Saints, as strange Inspiration (they get no paycheck), as mighty Purpose (they say at day’s end, woe be to me a sinner!), as heartfelt Encounter (they, too, need it fresh and anew).

Praise be to Christ for the way forward and clean sailing winds of Lawless service, that is, the Occasion to raise praise in counterpoint to the upheld list of rules. We are after all soldiers who will remember good deeds proceed from a heart sincere and studious; we will not boast or abuse, and instead we will pray and bless. In the Encounter, the encounter none of us are worthy for, and that no amount of preparation can repair us for. We shall be little gods and christs to the people we liberate. We are not worthy of this, but God chose what is despised in the world to make what is lauded in the world.