If thou intend not nor seek nothing else but the pleasing of God and the profit of thy neighbor thou shalt have inward liberty.
~Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471)
As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled. And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.
~ from Genesis 39
Oh beloved, it is true.
We, each of us, were trapped in a prison cell, from which there was no escape. And, as Augustine said, we were non posse non peccare. It was not possible for us to not sin.
But now, something has changed. And with the change, has come a change in everything else.
Now, before any of you readers think this fool of a writer is a man who lives a holy life, and never fails – fear not. i am no different from you. When i get too tired or hungry, or lazy, or angry, or lonely, or tired or disoriented, i am more than able to lose my cool, or purity of thought, or sense of His Presence.
However, what i have learned is that i no longer – EVER – have to fall short of who He has already declared me to be. And the process of me learning that this is true, sets me a little bit further apart to Him each time i learn it a little bit more.
Can we see it?
Just as Joseph was a type of Christ, his imprisonment was a picture of our life on this earth. And, even as we go through all of our own stupidity, and the stupidity of others, we find that the steadfast Love of G_d really never does fail. He is is with us through all of it.
And somewhere, actually, there will be a moment where we no longer have to live in the prison of our own stupidity and sin. Nor do we have to be imprisoned by the stupidity and sin of others. We can, on the day we are called out from the shadows, actually appear before our King – and be given assignments well beyond our expectations and imagination.
However, we do have a choice. We can stay in the shadows of our fleshly and circumstantial prisons if we so desire. But, we have to believe that G_d has set us free and made us posse non peccare (able not to sin), by His Grace.
However again, once we do, we are off into an adventure that, like Joseph, is beyond our wildest dreams.
So, are your shadows calling you to stay in them? Or, worse yet, are they calling you back into their darkness? Oh yes, it happens to each of us. But, we know what that prison is like. There is nothing good in that rotting and fetid place; choking both life and light away from us. There is no need though, beloved. We can just keep walking, right into The Light.
Tonight is your night (and mine). Time to realize the true extent of our freedom.
Only faith that all does not end with this earthly existence gives us power not to chain ourselves to this earthly life by all means, and for its sake to come into all manner of baseness, degradation and humiliation. Only man of deep and sincere faith can be truly free. Dependence on the Lord God is the only dependence that does not degrade a man, nor turn him into a pitiful servant. But, on the contrary, it exalts him.
~Martyr Alexander Medem, Letter to his son, 1922
