“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. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. 9 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, 10 and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. 12 Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” (James 1:2-18 ESV)
Labors lead to Horizons: the Saint’s convictions are not borne towards megalomania but rather adopt a curious engagement with the unknown. The Fact and Posture of Faith consists in a stalwart Embrace, a Tomorrow-mentality, a What-if jaunt, that well-nigh can leave us high and dry, depressed, searching, worrisome, or antsy around the hurry-up. We can be antsy around the Equational surreal reality wherein all Give-and-Take loses alacrity or relevance, and we worry because of not having quite in sight a Got-It mentalism. We want to Get-It, but also we with children’s eyes see the horizons rise and crest, fall and subdue, of a Trained, Belayed, Earned sort of New Beginnings.
Because we need no longer worry around the pundit or stalwart one Embracing what is Known and Manageable. We mourn that the best have no confidence and the worst have all brass-headed boldness. But also we always know: Tomorrow’s Promises are Today’s Courage, Today’s headstrong fortress, Today’s ability to overcome the compromises made by Another. We see they have Compromised, have seen such-and-so Horizon and nothing more, and it leaves us meek, sheepish, defeated for an hour, but then Awoken as those putting shoulder to the plow and readying the Larger Dialog, the many minds dedicated and submitted, the entire World for an instance adopting some Honesty of Employ: that we are Honest that hard work gets the job done, only this: that Christ Opened the Calvinist’s sweatbox and labor mechanisms precisely by Promising, all is by grace alone, by faith alone. That we are not “earning” our salvation, but precisely because of this free reign of Grace, we can then labor into the night with joy and no false impetus.
The Promise of a New Day reckons therefore with urgent Call for the soldier to shelter and protect all comers, all those to whom dutifully bound, from the miasma, medium, modality of a Compromised Pundit or Enemy. Who thinks bah and humbug, who thinks all is laughably sincere when some good-old irony is in order, rather, nothing even that clever, that some good-old might-makes-right, pugnacity, despicable Attack is the kosher and forgivable Entreaty.
No, we do not automatically Forgive the would-be leader who seems to reckon only in fighting terms. We love, too, the peaceful Made-Over sergeant of arms and the thinker at rest, who is submitted to that Labors-Upon-Labors-Unto-Horizons. Who is strangely (too obviously, unbelievably?) peace-loving and plaintive in their own humility of Approach. Who are almost too humble and submitted, yet too if all the world were Right and Perfect then this jaunt and cadence would be permissible unto the hereafter and eternity.
No, we trust and verify, we dream and put pedal to the metal, put boot down, draw the line in the sand. The crimped passage, the hurried-up Decision, the moral Horizon and Stand chosen as a thinking point—just that—for Today, is one wearily Demanded by the rank and file. The rank and file already are being tempted by a False Horizon and Compromised Leadership. We do well, therefore, to eat and drink with the troops, to feel the Tide and Current in the Air, to say well such-and-so is Obvious, that we assert a little of this or of that. That we put a bit of boot to the ground on this front or that. That we beckon our Dreams even amidst setting up the checkpoint or making the hair-raising, daring city Visit.
Lives on the line, and too a mechanism that “just works”, on some front, our cities peaceful but Watch! See the stranger espied, the strange visitor Pointed Out, so some things do indeed Work, the group labors and tired city journeys in silent refraction one against another as they slouch and slumber through the night bus ride. We are no longer compromised but Welcoming, to that strange Facial Expression and One humbled but already loved and Upheld. We need all hands on deck, as some Tomorrow that our would-be enemies or nagging doubters Deny, some Tomorrow is on the on deck circle and looming: we need to band up and sally forth… Together.