I won't go into details or throw out any spoilers, because most of my fellow Trekkies, Trekkers, general sci-fi geeks, and such have likely already seen it and those who don't fall into the Trek spectrum on the Geek Scale likely don't care and, finally, because the show gave me the framework for this but isn't the topic. I saw something last night that I had seen similarly portrayed in many different sci-fi movies and shows, a space walk. Walk isn't really the right word of course, but space floating doesn't sound as purposeful. Lt. Commander Michael Burnham puts on a space suit and does a little solo trek outside the ship. The flight suit is awesome, and I love the way this scene is done.
This part of the show reminded me of others I'd seen, and together, they all made me think of Luke 24:49 -
And look, I am sending you what My Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.
Jesus told those following Him that they would be witnesses of the good news of God's love, power and way of life, of Him, but to wait to start doing anything until they were clothed in the power of the Holy Spirit. In recovery we are often reminded that we can't give away what we do not ourselves have, and what people in bondage need is power to be and stay free.
If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism [or any other addiction or habitual sin], many of us would have recovered long ago. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.
Lack of power, that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?
Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God.
- from the book Alcoholics Anonymous
We come seeking freedom after coming to understand that we can't set ourselves free or keep ourselves free. We need Daddy's help to do be free. We need the truth of Jesus to make us free, not just of our addictions but in every way. The path to that freedom, ironically enough, is found in surrender, in submission to the will of God. That's Step 3, and in the Third Step Prayer, not a required prayer by any means but a great example of the heart of and reason of surrender, we ask to be relieved from the bondage to self and given victory over our difficulties, that the victory can bear witness of His power, love and way of life.
It's our selfishness and bondage to self that is the real problem, and we do not have the power to overcome it. We need a greater power, the power of God. But we are called to deny self and follow Jesus, and in so doing be witnesses of Him. And that doesn't necessarily mean talking about Him, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with our T-shirts and bumper stickers or social media posts. What really serves to show the power, love and attributes of God to a world in need, to those we would help and serve, is not our words, but our deeds.
Wow! Look. That person is doing things in space without freezing or running out of air! I didn't think that was possible! But we don't ask that question of how that is possible because we know the answer. Thanks to scientists and numerous sci-fi writers, we know that with an environmental or space suit, a person can survive, work, take a walk, even fight, in space. We also know that a tear in the suit causes serious problems that lead to death if not repaired quickly. You have to be clothed, completely wrapped up in, the proper attire to tackle space. And that is also true of walking free.
Jesus took the idea of being clothed in power directly from the Old Testament, and there are many examples of what the concept meant. It literally meant that the Spirit of God wrapped the person up in the power of God, or clothed the person with the Spirit. It was written of Gideon before he led 300 men to victory over an army that vastly outnumbered them (long before Sparta tried the same odds against the Persians), and there are examples in the books of Chronicles as well. The Spirit enveloped the person being clothed, giving them the power to do what they couldn't do alone. And that is what we must have as well to do our journeying through the space of life without dying. We need our Spirit Suit to give us the readings about what is really going on in and around us, to give us guidance about the best way to act and react, to remind us of the mission and the mission parameters, to keep us safe from our surroundings and provide us with what we need to live. And to have a hole in that covering, to have a place where it us and not the Suit of Power, the Holy Spirit, between us and the space around us, is to have death working in our lives.
Jesus told His followers to wait in Jerusalem until they were prepared to go out. He basically told them to stay in the ship until they were equipped for space, and He's saying the same to us. We must deny self and follow Him, but He never went or did anything without being equipped to do so by the Spirit. We can't show people how to get free and live free if we are not ourselves equipped to be and live free ourselves, and we can't be free in the space of our lives without being properly equipped by the Spirit and wrapped by the Spirit in the Spirit. If we suit up, we can live and do whatever we need to do in the space of our lives. Even if we don't say anything, we bear witness. People will wonder how we can walk, live and be the way we are, since our self shouldn't be able to do that. And that gives us the opportunity to say, well, it's not my self, it's not my might or ability or determination or anything. It's the power of my Spirit Suit. Daddy loves me, and He gave me this Spirit which gives me the ability to live free. You can do this too.
Today, let us remember that bearing witness isn't always giving testimony with words, but that the best witness to how something works is often a demonstration of the doing. Let us make sure we wait to go out into the space around us until we are properly clothed and equipped by putting on our Spirit Suit. Not in a I'm wearing my god-suit so that I can pretend that I am my own god kind of way, but in a I'm wearing my God-suit so that I can do what He wills, so that I can love like Him, serve like Him, use His power as mine to do what's right and loving and to stay free from the things that bring death and destruction to my life and the lives of those around me. Let the Spirit so envelope us that it is impossible not to have conscious contact, conscious awareness of His love, His power and His direction for us at each moment, so that by walking in those, we can be a demonstration of them to all who see us trekking through the space of our day.
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