Fighting the good fight of faith is about acting faithfully to the needs of the given moment.
If we see that acting faithfully requires from us a flow of momentary courage—a thing never subsiding if perfectly manifested—then we can get on, and stay on, the right track.
But what happens is we struggle in and out of the pattern of this courage. Don’t worry, we all do—all of us ‘normal’ people.
We underdo and overdo our reactions and responses to life so far as this eluding momentary courage is concerned.
And this is what, essentially, this is about.
Having the courage to do what is honest, fair, just and right in our moments is not always that easy is it? It requires a strong heart colluding, simultaneously, with a sound mind—“all the planets aligned,” in holy congruence with God’s will.
Perfection is not to become us; none of us will reach it and find our home with it permanently. Perfection of courage, then, will be a fleeting guest sitting at the table of our moments, soon to seek leave from the meal that is our current problem... us there asking it as it passes our chair, “Do come again, soon!”
Perfection of Courage – Not the Real Point
Where we can endure honesty into the painful reality that is ours we instantly touch this perfection of courage—and it seemed almost too easy. Once we have it we enjoy it, but we don’t clamour after it for it will be sure to vanish as controlling fear ascends the moment.
We see here that perfection is not the point. Honesty is.
Honesty is the process getting us to the destination: courage. Honesty has us acting faithfully; faith, the momentary variety, is not that hard after all.
Our issue, then, is to string one faithful moment together with the next—a daisy chain of beautifully moral action; to the virtuous proportions akin of the Almighty God.
And this at last is the achievement of God’s will for our individual lives, so far as we’re set in the world.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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