It is no longer possible to bring together the divided halves of America. The only question now is when the shooting starts. There may be some false starts, but we shall have a civil war that will not end before things become horrific on a grand scale. Both sides have long postured about being the true American path, but it won’t matter. This is how empires die.
On the one hand, we dare not take sides. On the other hand, we cannot avoid it. That is, we must be prepared to find ourselves in the middle of something with no way of escape. Even if you are certain your abode is where God wants you, there will be hard decisions that no one else can make for you. Salute whatever flag flies over your place of service; embrace it as God’s choice for you. Otherwise, be ready to migrate when the Spirit moves.
You are the only one who can know what God requires of you in any context. It is your faith alone that can read the convictions of your heart. Your divine call and sense of mission is the frame of reference. It will never make sense to anyone else, unless they understand the nature of the heart-led path. So the way folks divide into opposing camps has nothing to do with righteousness. Holiness is following the path God lays out for you. The source of human conflicts is our fallen nature; the conflicts are a feature, built into our world. We engage those conflicts in one way or another because that’s where God puts us, not because the side on which we end up is somehow righteous. It’s simply the context in which we serve.
That service is the thing God sees; the context is His to control.
This is not nihilism; it is holy cynicism. As long as people are focused on this world, they will never understand what God demands. Instead, they will serve the idols of various human interests, calling those things “God” because they don’t know God. None of their idols will survive the cleansing hand of God. The only thing we take to heaven when we die is our witness to the otherworldly truth of God.
I know what my mission is. Already people have tried to hijack it, subvert it to idolatrous pursuits of whatever false gods they serve, and I haven’t even gotten started. My first long bike trip waits for warmer, drier weather here in Oklahoma. Until then, I’m simply training up to long rides with a loaded bike.
By the way, someone asked if the bike I linked to in a previous post is the only one I would use. No, this one could also fill the bill, and costs a little less. But either this or the other one is simply a material ideal, not the iron choice of God. His will isn’t like that when it comes to mission equipment. To be honest, God can provide a wide range of things, because things don’t really matter. They are just tools for service; the service is what matters. We seek to match the tools to the context, and our understanding of the context is likely to vary from moment to moment. It’s the commitment to service that really matters. God will provide, and will bless what He provides.
