We are soldiers in the army.

~This post is from 11/28. I'm a tad behind. ~

I have a tendency to be very hard on myself. I have created a standard of perfection that no human can attain. There is little room for error or failure. I know of course that it is unrealistic and that even God does not demand such a standard from me. Nevertheless I have often used my relationship with God to justify that standard and judge myself harshly when I fail. And inevitably I do fail because no one is perfect. God requests a perfect heart toward Him. But in that paradoxical way of His, He insists that it be attained through our own weakness, foolishness and failure which, once offered up to Him, becomes the channel for His own infinitely perfect grace. 

Yes, yes, I know all this with my head and I dare say even my heart has an inkling. How then do I begin to put it into practice? How does this truth of the life of man in God get lived out. Here too, God holds the key. He speaks to us of thanksgiving, praise and prayer. Serving it up in His word at every opportunity like the healthy meal prepared by a loving parent. The child does not how she is made to grow by it, she only knows it tastes good and she does indeed grow bigger and stronger. Neither do I understand the nutrient value to my soul of praise, thankfulness and communion with God, but it is nevertheless nourishing to me. 

But what do I mean by this? Here is is how God fed me. 

I had a hard week last week. I made some mistakes. Not big ones. But when you are your own cruel taskmaster even little things get magnified. On top of that I've been struggling for the last few months with a spirit of negativity and criticism. Gossip has always been a bit of a nemesis for me so that has been rearing its ugly head as well. My worst battlefield is always the office. If someone else says something negative or critical I've become a little too eager of late to chime in. But it's not all on my coworkers!  In all honesty I can "do bad all by myself" by being the very one to instigate a negative conversation, especially during a stressful day. And that describes almost every day. 

The thing is though, having come to know God and love Him more for the knowing of Him, I see that this behavior is not pleasing to Him. It besmirches my perfect heart toward Him because it reveals the wayward worldliness of my nature. I criticize to make others look bad and myself look better by comparison. I "chime in" to "fit in". Joining a negative conversation so as not to be left out. Essentially I am serving two masters. God and people. Or maybe it's God and self. Either way my heart is divided. Still I know who I want to serve. My failure to do so consistently makes it almost impossible to enjoy or even remember my moments of triumph. The times when I keep my mouth shut about someone else's failures, or the times when I speak good things over the negativity of others. Little kindnesses done, or milestones achieved. I honestly have to struggle to recall them at the end of a long day. But the failures. They get replayed in 3D IMAX on the screen of my brain, bigger than life, blown out of proportion and set on a loop that tortures me sometimes through the night. This is no way to live.

So last Friday morning I came to the beach all wound up from a hard week of battling my own impossible standard. I prayed. I wrote a little trying to focus on the moment. Not the past. Not the future. Just that moment with God. "Be still and know that I am God." It was a meditation of sorts. It gave me enough quiet to prepare me for what He was about to do. I only wrote a little bit. I only read a little in my bible. I only meditated for a few minutes. But that morning those things where the appetizers for what was to come. 

"Such are my green pastures," I wrote of my written meditation, "and the sea my still waters. Now it is time for singing." 

The last sentence was instruction from God. I can't say how I knew that. But I knew it. And the result of the singing was the proof of it even if I had not known it was a direct command for me. So I pulled out my ipad, brought up my "Beach" playlist, which is all praise and worship music, plugged in my headphones and began to sing. Now the beach was empty at the time, but I have long since lost my sense of self-consciousness when listening to my music, so it would not have mattered who was there. I sang loudly, letting the words penetrate my being. 

Something wonderful happened. The joy and presence of God descended upon me with such a sweetness, such a power, such a love that I can scarcely describe. It was beautiful beyond words. Tears began to flow with abundance and I was overwhelmed by the sheer fabulousness of God's undaunted love. The more I praised Him, the more of His glory He revealed in my soul. Before I could be utterly swept away by Him, He graciously abated His presence to a more emotionally sustainable level and I continued to sing less with tears and more with laughter. There was however that one remaining pillar of self-imposed perfection that still loomed. I could feel it simmering. But Grace had a plan for that also. 

It is important to note at this point that it was cold at the beach on Friday. I sat in my little spot all bundled up with a somewhat thin blanket around my shoulders and another across my lap. I had my hood up and I was rocking back and forth to the music singing loudly. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman arrive with two dobermans. I know many of the beach regulars and their dogs by sight, and she was new to me. They went the opposite way up the beach so I paid them no mind. I just sat and continued to sing and praise God. When I glanced again up the beach they were gone. After a few minutes the song I was listening to ended. As the opening notes of the next one struck I heard a kind voice behind me say, "would you like a cup of coffee?"

I turned around to find the woman standing on the bank behind me. The moment she saw my ipad and realized I was listening to music, she looked mortified. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I thought you were homeless and it so cold. I'm so sorry." I was so touched by her compassion, I was not in the least bit offended. "It's okay," I assured her, "that's really sweet of you. It's really okay." She continued to apologize and explained that she often came across homeless people in that spot and whenever she could she would buy them coffee. I reassured her again and wished her a good day as she left. The whole thing took less than 30 seconds but it wiped away months of self recrimination.

Her act of kindness exploded upon my heart like the voice of God. "Even if you were to fail utterly to the point of being alone, cold and homeless, I would still send someone to be kind to you." As if to drive home the point that she had been His appointed messenger, the song that had begun to play when I heard her voice was Brandon Heath's "Jesus in Disguise". Tears of joy flowed again as I realized that the God who created the universe had sent someone out of her way just to reassure me of the constancy of His love.

But in that abundance upon abundance way if His, The Lord lavished upon me a second revelation as I rejoiced in the sweetness of the first. He brought to my mind the kindnesses of strangers and friends that I had experienced in years past. And the tender mercies I had given to others, either by direct obedience to His voice or by the surge of human compassion in my own heart. I saw that every act of compassion whether done for Him explicitly in His name or in accord with conscience is an act of obedience and sweet divine perfection manifested in the world. 

In my heart I heard Him say,"such is my hidden army among the children of men." We are all imperfect soldiers in God's army. Governments seek out the strongest men and women for their armies. But God seeks hard after the broken and weak among us to be His champions. Not that we would stand for Him, but that He might stand with Us. He in us, we in Him. His magnificent strength being made ever perfect in our constant weakness. For I never was perfect a day in my life even when I have shown love to another in the name of the Most High God. And no perfect person was ever sent to minister to my heart by God, whether in the name Christ or mere human compassion. And yet a Perfect God made Himself perfectly known by their hands. 

As I purposed in my heart to surrender more deeply my failure and weakness to His divine love, a lingering lament surged up. I chided myself for my failures, thinking what a poor excuse for a Christian I must be if I behaved no better than anyone else. What damage have I done to my testimony of Christ by my past failures.  I thought on  this and God, my dear Lord of Lavish love and tenderness taught me a third sweet lesson as I packed up my gear to go. I thought to myself, What if that woman were to condemn herself for her "error" in judgement? What a tragedy it would be if she would regret her kindness or hesitate to act upon it again for fear of error, when in fact she had altogether blessed me.  I thought, so too my own failures be they deliberate or by ignorance committed are not worth wallowing in as upon an open grave when God might turn it to good in an instant.

And so God offered another option "Let it be that I might be all the more Glorified as your heart is humbled." By this He showed me that it is a far greater Glory to Him if others see how His hand alone can truly change me from glory to Glory than for me present some image of false perfection counterfeited with the name of Christ upon it. Better a resurrected life in Him than a painted corpse wearing a cross. Better a broken soldier victorious in The Lord, than a mighty one in defeat.

We are Soldiers, in the army, 
We have to fight, although we have to cry
We have to hold up the bloodstained banner 
We have to hold it up until we Die!