Tactical Individuality

You must stand alone but you are never alone.
Having a foot in both realms offers some incredibly difficult opportunities for explaining how to live. Jesus used parables for this very reason; unfortunately our culture is utterly without talent in this area. I end up writing stuff most people never comprehend because I’m pretty much forced to mix metaphor and clinical description. I want you to get it. I want you to not need my help, nor anyone else’s in this world, even as you make maximum use of it when it’s available.
Consider for a moment the fundamental fact of our fallen nature. Thanks to Adam and Eve, we are born spiritually dead in a badly broken plane of existence. We are utterly incapable of piercing the barrier of isolation. We are born utterly alone. It takes time, but in the natural course of human development we realize the universe is not an extension of our feelings and whims, that we have to negotiate between what we want and what can be. In many ways, individuation is the ultimate goal and ultimate shock to our human sense of being. You see, the existentialists are partly correct — if this world is all there is, you are truly and utterly alone. The only reference point is what you can get away with, and then you die.
But we were created for communion in the Spirit Realm. The ancient Hebrew culture held a place for that understanding, but even within that frame of reference, it was too easy to deny it. In Western society, it might as well not exist in the first place, because the entire frame of reference denies it. Yet God ignores all that and still breathes life into some of us. Nothing anywhere, nothing available on this level of existence, could ever explain how and why He chooses one and not another, but it’s painfully obvious when you visit even the most spiritual churches. Some people there seem to accept the moral code, but never evince that subtle difference of someone who remains sensitive to the Spirit in some way. On top of that, God’s Word indicates some folks in history were born for damnation, as it were.
While in this body, the best we can hope for is vague awareness of truth. The human intellect cannot possibly understand Ultimate Truth because, as we’ve been warned in Scripture, Truth is a Person, not an “it.” That Person stands outside our plane of existence. Touching Him in any way requires He invade on our behalf. While some portion of us comes to life, the connection between that spirit faculty and our minds is always fuzzy. We have records of people who managed to find a path of action that seems to have been spectacularly empowered by the Spirit Realm, but even that, we are warned, is partly calling and not for all of us. It comes back down to something shared on a level we can’t describe, but in the meantime our fleshly existence stands alone before God.
It would be easy to get lost at this point in the Western mythology of “no fear”. Balderdash. People without fear are more than just spiritually dead; they are psychopaths. What you and I seek is to keep fear from ruling us. It never goes away, but we don’t have to let it vote. The same goes for all the other human emotions. Yes, we assume we’ll fail at some point given the vagaries of things, but the aspiration still stands.
Let’s pretend for a moment your mission in life includes advising people actively fighting the evils of this world. You aren’t silly enough to do this yourself, because your otherworldly calling is to regard human politics as background noise, scenery, mere context like physical death itself. But while you live, your mission seems to be guiding them with your spiritual wisdom. There is precedent for that in the Bible, where a spiritual giant was advising someone without any spiritual clue. Tactics we understand better than even we might expect, when we stop and consider the implications of human fallen nature.
Never assume either side is right in God’s eyes. You can sometimes help steer moral choices for the sake of morality itself, but don’t count on too much. Instead, realize that you are just a cog in the vast universe and your sole concern is making Jesus look good in how you carry out your earthly tasks. You aren’t really concerned about what you can accomplish, just a consistent moral orientation in the midst of a lot of things you cannot possibly steer. You’ll never own the results, only your response to a world of random idiocy. It’s just a game and you can afford to leave it unfinished. Find peace with that, because it does tend to be infectious and helps others.
We recognize that among the spiritually dead, there are psychopaths and there are servants of psychopaths. You may never really know which is which, but you’ll have to estimate provisionally until things offer a better indication. In terms of sheer tactics, you want to kill the psychopaths who lead, but that’s seldom easy. There is a reason they have servants who aren’t like them. They manipulate them for their own purposes, and need not fear genuine competition. But the people they use are often the weakest, even as they tend to be the most ruthless. The primary tactic is to cripple or disable their actions.
The most powerful enemy always relies on someone else. Disable that one critical supporter and their plans fall apart. Examine their organization and see how they operate, whom they trust the most, etc. The best surgeon has only two hands; cripple that third hand and no one gets well. The best engineer relies on the savvy technician to execute; hinder the technician and structures don’t stand. The strongest rulers always rely on at least one other person to keep things organized; stymie that organizer and their plans fall apart. These things don’t necessarily win the war, but they change the odds.
On what one thing do they most rely? What matters most in their plans? Take it or break it. If it’s human, find the weak spot and exploit it. Cloud their clarity of purpose and commitment. They serve for all sorts of complex reasons, but you can always complicate things further. Get them to turn on each other. The greatest threat to them is what they don’t expect. If you can read their expectations, always do something else. This is how the coming political oppression can be reduced.
The best armor is the one that shields your weak spots. You prevent your side from exposing vulnerabilities, either by cover or concealment. Never play by the other side’s rules, on the ground of their choice, for the goals they seek.
For you: Don’t care. Never invest great amounts of emotional energy in any thing, because that becomes your own vulnerability. No worldly loss should matter enough that you can’t just turn and say, “That’s gone. What can we do now?” As long as you realize your only real concern is outside this realm of existence, you cannot be turned aside from your best course. In the flesh you’ll often stand alone. Your nearest and dearest will fail you; you’ll fail yourself. Don’t care; don’t be surprised when it happens.
Your ultimate concern in this life is the glory of Jesus Christ. Your exit will come soon enough.