Nougat 9

My dears

This business of the drama at the White House has been Toxic. Most everyone is agreed on this. There have been calls for impeachment; and there have been all sorts of ridicule, especially in the wake of President Trump’s description of developing countries and the current behavior of his supporters.

But what if there was more to the drama than meets the eye? Consider today’s Holy Nougat

“For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” Ephesians‬ ‭6:12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

My dears, if we bear the likeness and image of God in a spiritual sense, then it also means that our DNA also has a spiritual element. And that we OUGHT to be under God’s spiritual authority. Thus, what we do in the natural has spiritual implications whether we acknowledge that or not. That being said, if we have not yet reconciled our spirits with God’s, then it is highly likely that whatever we do is counter to God’s Spirit and a different spirit is in control of our lives. This is Paul’s basic premise.

He moves from the implied premise to argue that life is NOT always as straightforward as it ought to be. For if we operate on parallel planes – spiritual and natural at the same time; then much of what we are responding to, actually is in the spiritual (many Jamaicans ‘get’ this, as we are wont to speak about ‘spirit-tek’ in relation to others). I suspect that Paul was not just speaking to the challenges the Ephesians faced, but that he was also seeing a time like this.

We May wonder how we ought to respond, to this week or even other issues we face in our immediate contexts.

Paul gives us one response – recognize that this battle cannot be fought in the natural only. No, we don’t ‘read a psalms’ for those who offend us; but we recognize that our physical enemies are not the real enemy.

Many of us have heard of the eagle and the snake; where the eagle carries the battle way up in the sky to conquer the snake. For high places is the eagle’s habitat. Unlike the snake, that’s where the eagle has the advantage.

As Christians, we also must respond to life’s challenges in the spiritual. It’s God’s habitat. And there we have an advantage; we have a host of angels (literally) ready to fight ALONGSIDE us.

So, whether it’s US politics, Covid-19 crisis, employment, relationships or economic issues; let’s deal with it in God’s habitat. Tips on this will follow over the next few days.

In Christ’s love and grace . . .