As sent elsewhere, but amended somewhat to share more generally here for prayer also:
Very trying week here, and just praying through present circumstances it occurred to me to share for prayer.
We didn’t do much to compare notes on the present social climates and the current circumstances regarding progression of the past year’s globally emerging ideologies, through strictures and regimented narratives…I just kind of assumed things were more or less as they had been last we discussed: woefully tense, deeply illogical, and mindlessly oppressive. I assume the continuation of these matters along the recognized trajectory we have previously discussed.
I don’t generally feel a need to discuss details of such matters, as it’s all more of the same, progressing anyways—Romans 1 in sharper, and still sharper, relief.
I find myself on the precipice of the abyss again now, being pressed to fall in, to capitulate, to succumb. And somehow this isn’t just the shot but also the swab/exams…the latter being the crux of matters at this very moment. I find that I cannot in good conscience submit to mandatory testing—to do so would constitute sin against God, for me. And even as with my conviction regarding the shot, although there are many things I can kind of formulate in terms of reasonings for why it seems so off to me, ultimately the conviction exceeds them all and is beyond my absolute reach except to submit to God and His wisdom in all this. As He gives me grace to do so (being utterly at His mercy to even have the strength and clarity) I will forbear and stand. To stand, in the day of adversity—though only by the means by His Spirit—is my hope and prayer. Having done all, then to stand. He affords what’s necessary, and I will trust Him to keep my foot from slipping—though nearly it did, yesterday: during conversation with my boss’s boss, I gave a preliminary consent to possibly undertake a different sort of test, if not the standard.
But all night I was so distressed I couldn’t rest or sleep. So at nearly 2am, I sent him an email certifying that I am spiritually (thus morally, moreover) bound to honor God in all this, and whatever the cost, I cannot submit to a thing which would be known sin for me.
I keep being reminded of the progression two years ago, of my decline into such shipwreck: I don’t know if I ever told you, but it started with a song. He wanted me to listen to a song, wanted to share music with me. And so many times I had said no, because it was all so disturbing and I couldn’t bear to listen. But then one afternoon, he had an instrumental piece—having accepted that lyrics which weren’t praising God weren’t bearable. And in my thoughts, it was “just music,” “just instrumental,” and “surely no big deal,” so “how can just this one little song hurt…?” And thus began the torturous twisting of conscience, to reach a final point of horribly recasting (in my own mind) the blatant, increasing sinfulness of my ways into a type of self-sacrificial love and kindness.
That egregious lie began by acting against conscience over listening to an instrumental song, culminating in a shipwreck of faith—except the Lord did not leave me in that mire but withdrew all peace from my spirit (even by continuing to have such mercy upon me in so many ways). Even as again and again—throughout that latter portion of time before repentance—my guilt mounted to such a pitch that it could not be denied and in brief moments of clarity I couldn’t still deny the truth but reflected in horror and terror upon my position: wretchedly sinning, and totally at His mercy. And in those moments, I was utterly shocked at His continued provenance in the midst of my abject forsaking of His will. It was blessedly a deep torment and torturous grief to my soul, or otherwise I would have been lost. He led me to repent.
I keep remembering that. And committing again and again to not enter that same cycle, if He will give me strength and guide me. And I believe He will—I just have to wait upon Him, moment by moment, and have to continue remembering that is my place: I can only take this breath, this step in front of me—by grace alone, nonetheless—and I am not able to control tomorrow. Whatever needs done to prepare—that, too, He will direct me in today. I cannot know what He alone knows, so I must continue to defer to the Author and Perfector of my faith. My Beloved Savior. ❤️
I also keep remembering a snippet which may have been the only reason I shared that odd podcast a few months ago: the mention of how the man’s father had admonished his daughter not to survive to the second fight—give it all at the first, even if it means to die trying. Because, as cited in that explanation, if they “get you into the van,” the place they are taking you is not going to be safer or more comfortable. So, far better to have died during the initial assault. A heavy thought.
That’s a double-edged matter, really: in one sense, present circumstantial pressures constitute a first assault on conscience—whatever crux of capitulation would come next, if we succumb and falter now, the consequences of taking a stand then will certainly not be easier to endure than the hardship which arises from taking the stand now (whatever difficulty may be consequent now, in God’s economy). Quite the opposite, circumstances now are far less trying than they will be if we refuse to heed God and submit to His will at this juncture. And conversely, for God’s people to capitulate to sin now will not only NOT result in securing the elusive senses of comfort, safety, and social solidarity which are being used to taunt and tempt capitulation to the will of man (above the will of God), but will push those further from us for having turned from God by rationalizing that earthly dictates are more pressing that divine mandates: rationalization against conscience for the purpose of forging a false internal peace related to acting rashly and wrongly (acting against God’s will, is the thing which defines those matters)…is choosing to worship something other than Him, thus being given over to the delusion we have actionably preferred.
I have lived that horror too recently to easily fall prey now (but by grace)—in thankfully less dire, though no less atrociously, wretchedly wrong matters. Meaning, I have lived that so recently that the grief of it is being used now by the Lord as a goad now, to commit all this to Him and stand resolute no matter the cost (which use as goad is such an incomprehensible redemption of such a horribly matter that it makes me want to weep anew at the wretchedness of my faltering from loving Him, once more)…
We should not have given ground when churches were deemed inessential, when congregating was deemed contraband, and when singing congregate worship to God (which is edification to one another) was made illicit. Yet we did not. And so, here we stand.
Jesus is so incomprehensible kind, though. So merciful. We really should just submit to Him and trust Him with the fallout. For even when we fall apart under the weight of the proceedings, He will pluck us up or enter in with us and make once more be still, knowing He is God as we wait upon Him within the crucible.
I keep reflecting on 2 Chron 7:14, anew—a point of meditation for years, but now in a different light. It’s His people who are called to humble themselves and submit to Him, when the nation is given to judgment. And for that to be the call during a time of judgment…during unrest and increasingly unleashed consequence …having been given over to sin, in society, then…that implies friction—mortification of self, foremost, as no linger m being conformed to those who are content in sin. And that…is unto persecution, isn’t it? If they hated Him and called Him of beelzebub, what more will we encounter?—as all the greater, the more heightened the pitch of sinfulness surrounding. As what our Lord endured, we are called also to walk. If they did as they did to Him when the wood was green, what, when it is dry?
So in my paltry way, I’d redoubled and tripled prayer and commitment to my conviction. I must submit to God in all this. I don’t know how things will go, but I did let my boss know if it is God’s will, this is a hill I will die on. As following God incarnate, Christ Jesus, I must take up my cross too.
They may fire me. I have requested an exemption based on my religious conviction. But lawlessness abounds, and so it is all the more apparent that I am wholly and completely at God’s mercy in all these matters. Whatever the case, I will trust Him and wait upon Him. He is worthy, and I have no stake in any of these matters, besides—it doesn’t matter except to honor Him. My life is His anyways. May He do as He wills with what is His.
I will do as I’ve been told and keep looking to Christ. He is good. He has borne and He will carry. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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