Tightropes and Sentinels

Across an expanse, a line is pulled tight, upon which the very conscientious believer precariously places themselves in their quest for Christ and worthy living. On the right and left endless considerations circle. “Do I pull close or create distance to this person I know?”, “Do I have mercy, or do I stay consequential?”, “do I look back or look forward?”. The longer this difficult act goes, the more the person treading the line realizes the dangers of imbalance. It doesn’t take much. Boundless passion, tyrant logic, incessant introspection, suffocating productivity: these are all expressions of too much of any one thing. Better to deal with such things than to slip into complacency. One foot is carefully placed in front of another as cautious consideration attempts to keep the scales balanced on both the right and left of them.

Time passes, and although the believer has not fallen, and has even progressed tremendously over time, exhaustion starts to take hold – in the middle of tightrope traversal… all while the other side is not even yet in view!

So they stop – and they must. They wonder why a righteous walk could bring them to their knees so far away from the other side – shouldn’t there be ample grace for this? Others like them may offer a helping hand, or encouraging words, and they may find strength to continue in their trepidatious motion.

In a rare case, with some luck and sovereign intervention, something unforeseen transpires: an evil comes into focus – the truth about that which has brought them low, and was guilty for so much of the ardent walking from the very beginning. There was never a pure motive for their advancement… it was the fear of falling: the doubt of oneself, and the Creator they seem to be trying to pursue.  

Now that they see it for what it is, something must be done about it.

All the previous obsessions, repressions, weighty truths, and dependencies that previously threatened to push the wanderer off their perch are no longer forces to balance against one another, but elements to resist as centering weight is discarded in favor of spite.

No more will they be enticed and pushed by the elements that swirl about them. Instead, they think, they will turn to stone, and refuse all things that attempt to influence them. How else can they find with certainty that which they truly are?

They learn to resist and say “no” to all things which desperately tries to find a kink in their increasingly hardened selves. They free themselves from the influence of worries and cares that swirl about – and because of this they discover the ability to see that which is happening around them with unbiased eyes. They perceive themselves truthfully as a creation unified to an endless creator.

As a newly carved sentinel, they stand on the heights, warning others of the temptations and hells of the earth, while competently resisting falsehoods of all manner, both spiritual and human. They strategize as experts, command respect, wield consequence like a mace, and serve as examples to all those still balancing. They suffer with purpose, and demonstrate steeled beliefs because they know all too well that the consequences for not doing so are enormous, and the benefits too promising if they do.

In this way, the once-wanderer triumphs over their insecurities…

In it all they scarcely realize that they have come unglued from that which inspired them to start their walk of faith to begin with: an intimate heartfelt relationship to God. They must learn, in their steeled solidarity, to continue to walk the tightrope – not as experts in a balancing act, but as weight-filled person, purposed for intimacy with God, as steps are taken confidently, and much more easily.