18 June 2023
I would not trade anything for the faith and peace I have today.
The path here was long and convoluted. It's no reflection on God, but of the mess I was in when I gave Him my life. I can't count all the locations where I stopped along way, thinking I had found the right place to stand before Him. It was always better than what came before, but if I knew then what I know now, I would have screwed it up beyond all recognition trying to take shortcuts.
That's the wisdom of the saying, "You can't get there from here." Closer is better, but it might shock you just what you need to pass through on the way. And then you have to get used to the idea that you never really arrive in the first place. The only destination you have is "closer".
As a separate question, there's real problem with people assuming their individual path is normative for everyone else. It takes time to realize God doesn't lead any two of us on the same route. Too many people have this irresistible urge to camp out at some location and insist the world come to them. That's not how God works.
One thing is the same for the whole human race: God's will is always in everyone's best interest, but it's not all-or-nothing. More of His will is better than less. The written Covenant code is as close as humans get without spiritual birth, and Paul specifically said the purpose of the written code was to awaken the desire for peace with God. It can't give you that peace, but if you are Elect, the standards of the law code will make you want that peace.
In that sense, "salvation" is becoming aware of Election. God uses all kinds of ways and means to get His chosen people to that awareness. He wants to use us in the process, to share in that glorious miracle, but we have to be pleasing to Him first. And to be pleasing to Him means obeying well enough for people to see some glimpses of that high standard of God's will.
For most of us, that means infiltrating the systems of this world. I was in military uniform for a time; there are things I hated about that time. And those things have only gotten worse. But I suppose I might still go back if they wanted me for some reason. Yes, there's an abundance of crap rolling down onto the troops from the bureaucracy above, and there's not a darned thing anyone can do about it. Still, the mission of faith for me meant being there to show as much of God's will as they could understand.
We were all in it together, and our common experience created a sort of community. Very few of them wanted any part of the covenant that held me, but the quasi-community of our situation gave us common ground, which gave my witness a far stronger meaning. I left it in God's hands where He was leading them in or out of faith, but I was committed to playing my role.
The military mission never meant much to me on its own, but that higher mission from God demanded that I excel in that military mission for His glory. One of the best ways I could move significant numbers of people closer to peace with God was to demonstrate His will in how I wore that uniform. I assure you, I screwed it up plenty, and wish I could go back and do it better. Nonetheless, God used me to reach a lot of people in spite of myself. I saw them change.
No, there is nothing I could do to make the bureaucracy any better; it's terminal. It will fail completely all too soon. But what I could do is influence individuals with the fire of my commitment to Christ. And a critical element of that commitment is to adapt to the stupidity and excel, and encourage others to do the same. The most I can possibly do is play the role God gave me and nudge the people to a better place closer to His truth. That would do more to save souls than anything else I might do in uniform.
We must be driven by conviction. Whether I had any hand in troubling any of America's military targets was never important, so that motivation could not have carried me through. Nor was it any kind of mythical patriotism; I was too cynical for that. What drove me to excel was the necessity of reaching people from a high moral track through the military. My only regret is that I know I could have done a much better job of it.
It was the most active field for missions I've ever experienced. Somewhere out there in front of me is another mission field that I cannot see, but what I learned in the military will be quite pertinent. It has been rather pertinent already, but there's still something waiting for me. The experience and skills of influencing people through high moral standards will be critical.
This is the vision that drives me. It's the same vision that drives me through every other quasi-community of shared human condition. We need each other, regardless of whatever internal mechanisms operate in our heads and hearts.
Comments
DarkMirror
I remember hearing a guest sermon a while back, where the speaker said we shouldn't really be asking God into our hearts as much as following us where He leads into His heart. Your first 2 or 3 paragraphs reminded me of that.
Catacomb Resident
That message is familiar to me. Someone I admired back in college said that not once does the Bible suggest asking Jesus into your heart, but says an awful lot about obeying Him.
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