March 22, 2010

1 Peter 3

Not my favorite writer, over all.

All of the sexist stuff at the beginning of this chapter is, in a way, just a way of saying what he says just afterwards, "Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse," which is an actual paraphrase of something Jesus said. Don't hide your light under a bushel, but going all hardcore and violent about asserting our rights is not the Christian way either. Equality and the butt of a gun is no equality at all. That doesn't mean we don't stand up, it means we do it as Christians. It'll hurt more and less this way. It costs more of us, but it takes less from us.

An interesting continuation, "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you." Now there's my current project in a nutshell. Keep your conscience clear so that they will listen. Be an honorable and respected member of your community, so that when you speak, they will at least listen to you. And when they finally do ask, have your answer ready.

I'm working on that last part.

So here goes, another attempt to wrap some words around it:

The greatest good that I've done in my life, the most good I've done for people, has been when I wasn't aware of it. At least not fully. At times when I felt low in my faith and my hope, in fact, I often reached out and touched the most profoundly. That wasn't me, that was God working through me without even my will getting all caught up in it. Talk about "my burden is easy," this is Him taking charge when I barely even notice.

If I willed it, if I sought out improvement in my behavior and spirit, then you could say it was something psychological or societal. But it wasn't. It was something far beyond me that reached out to the people I met at times in my life when a display of my own faithfulness was beyond me. In the quiet of my soul, God reached out through me. And I don't know if I will ever affect anyone as much as I did the first person I realized I was able to help touch in this way (in my small way).

How do I know that God is there? Because within a day of asking the question of why I am here in Virginia, what good I am supposed to be doing, what I am doing with Shakespeare, I received two answers. One was the day before, the other the day after.

Because He has answered my questions if I have the wit to see it. Because He loves me so much He never leaves me in doubt. I have been given the Gift of Certainty, and He uses that gift in me even when I do not have the will or the strength to assert it.

My prayers are always answered, that is how I know. Not always yes or even "not now" or even a fully comprehensible reply, but He never leaves me in doubt.