bearing the consequence of God...part deux

Let integrity and uprightness preserve me,* for my hope has been in you.
Psalm 25:20

one of my many repeated prayers over the years to the Lord has been to live with integrity...

one of my favorite pieces of scripture that i have ever taken the time to slowly read through has been Job...

now job was truly a man's man of integrity...

[note: to live with integrity does not mean to live without sinning. the heart of integrity - to borrow from eugene petersen - is a long obedience in the same direction...it's more about undertaking the endeavour to live - long-term - consistently with the Way of God/Christ.]

due to the circumstances surrounding the tragedies that befell he and his wife, everyone assumed the 'sin/guilt' of job was the issue at hand...

[of course the brilliant author let's us in on the secret: it's really about job's integrity and the faith-filled provocation of God...you see, in holding on to his integrity job bore the consequence of God]...and all of his friends aggravated him to no end by insisting that he confess his sin...of course, the deeper awareness - might i say contemplative-orientation - in job suggested to him otherwise...that this wasn't about sin, there was something else going on...and should he confess to something he didn't actually do? no, he held onto his integrity!

...yet today: so many overly-gnostic 'spiritual warfare' tactics have us try to confess all of the sins of our past/present/future...both the ones of comission and omission to 'do battle' and 'find release' from some affliction...

i think we go there too quickly...without taking time for that deep, contemplative pondering of what is happening and what is God's agenda in our circumstances...

it's not that we wouldn't eventually get to praying/confessing sins of omission, certainly we see that modeled in the Psalms:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

And see if there be any hurtful way in me,

And lead me in the everlasting way
(Psalm 139:23-24)

...but in our 'get-rid-of-pain-asap' world, we miss out if we rely on some sort of check-listy, ritualized spiritual warfare voodoo rather than engaging in the deeper aspects of life and spirituality and the Way of God...which is the way everlasting...

in Your integrity,
preserve us O my Saviour!
our hope is in You
strengthen us with Your Spirit
to live lives of integrity
with faith and hope and love
in the here-and-now
of the now-and-not-yet

amen