day no. 15,683: perseverance is not the problem per se

In reading The Art of Manliness, Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues by Brett McKay, I came across the following quotes,

"Perseverance means the steady pursuit of a plan, whether good or bad." -- Readings for Young Men, Merchants, and Men of Business, 1859

We are better at persevering than we give ourselves credit for. We can stick to things much better than we imagine. When we wish for better habits, we reveal our perseverance in bad ones. When we are in a bad mood, we show how committed we are to maintaining it.

We can ride things out when we want to. We persevere in poor diets despite gaining weight. We persevere in breaking the speed limit despite the speeding tickets. We persevere in binge watching Netflix despite being exhausted in the mornings. We persevere in biting our fingernails despite the pain and discomfort.

We can persevere. We can endure difficulties. Everything has its problems. We choose the problems we want and persevere through the ones we prefer. We have the problems we have because of our perseverance. If we want different problems, we need to persevere in something else. Until then, however, we will continue to persevere in our preferred problems.

day no. 15,682 continued... be the control group

Leviticus 19:35–37

You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules, and do them: I am the Lord.

Judgment requires a standard. You need something which is set in order to judge anything else. Length, weight and number presuppose a zero against which to measure. Without a zero, measurement is meaningless. It is subjective slapdashery like the pain chart in the labor/delivery room. "I'm at a 6?" Maybe, maybe not.

Scientific experimentation is predicated upon hypotheses and an ability to reject the null hypothesis. If you cannot reject the null hypothesis, you cannot claim any particular effect. In order to produce data, you need variables that are controlled. In other words, you need to be able to isolate certain variables if you want to claim an effect of any one of them. You cannot say, "This does that," or "This is a that percentage like to do that," unless you have something to compare "this" and "that" to.

All that to say, the effectiveness of any medication or whacksination requires a control group. You cannot measure success or failure without something to measure said success or failure against. The trial requires a control group who does not receive the medication or whacksination in order to isolate that variable in order to make any observation or claim regarding its effectiveness.

In other words, be the control group. Science needs you. You cannot claim to believe in the scientific method, or more commonly stated in our culture "believe the science," and advocate for the elimination of a control group. To insist that every participant be equal in that regard is to make scientific statements regarding the results impossible. Science, as a gift from God, rightly understands just measures. Science, however, in the hands of men, is as unjust as anything else in the hands of men --- a power grab designed to get something from someone in order to benefit someone else.

day no. 15,682: perambulating the perimeter

2 Thessalonians 3:11
For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.

It is a sin to equate walking briskly around the perimeter of a pit being dug with hard work.  Perambulation is not production. Pacing back and forth and around and around the perimeter isn't nothing, but it's not the something it says it is. All the work is being done down in the pit by different hands. It may at times be a flurry of activity, but it is never an outlet of output. It is all steam and no engine. It is a lot of work avoiding a lot of work.

Busybodying is activity without productivity. It is movement without progress; action without production; and energy without exertion. It is walking, but it is not working. This is true of it regarding its productivity, but also its pragmatism. It isn't engaged in the real business of doing and it won't produce anything as a result. This kind of work amounts to nothing across the board. It doesn't work. It won't work. It can't work. It is not working in any sense of the word. It may be busy, but it isn't working nor is it going to work out unless it repents.

day no. 15,681: living water wears away

Job 14:19-20
The waters wear the stones:
thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth;
and thou destroyest the hope of man.
Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth:
thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.

Hard stones are worn away by living water.

The steady, repetitious flow of water erodes its rock-hard confidence. That which was formed by liquid fire is deformed by liquid clouds. So the hope of man, a mere mist, vanishes in the heat of the rising sun. The energy and beauty of youth gives way to entropy and dismay. The hope of eternal life in this life is taken away twenty-fours at a time. The hope of man cannot withstand the rule of rust and decay. It devours the hopes and dreams of men.

Yet, in Christ, our cardiovascular crusts are worn away by living waters. Stoney surfaces began to gush with water in arid, barren places. Bread descends and life begins. The steady hand of God gives hope to the one who looks not to his own kingdom, but to God's. The kingdom of God prevails like leaven through the loaf, like water over the rocks. It wins. It holds out. It remains. It flows forever. It sustains while everything else eventually gives way to it. 

It conquers either by converting its captives to Christ or by crushing them, but nothing will escape His rule and reign. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Christ is King and Lord of all creation. Yet some knees will hit the earth in faith and hope and will delight at the sight of His coming; while others will hit the ground in disbelief and despair and will become undone by His doing.

day no. 15,680: faith insists except for when it doesn't

Job 13:15-16
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him:
but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
He also shall be my salvation:
for an hypocrite shall not come before him.

Faith insists on being saved. It believes without reservation that salvation belongs to the Lord and that He gives it freely to those who trust themselves to Him. This means that difficulty and even death are no obstacle to God's promises. He will save and faith believes it, not because of its presence, but because of His, not because it believes in itself, but because it believes in Him, not because it has faith in faith, but because it has faith in God. Faith insists on salvation from condemnation.

Faith does not insist on being saved. It believes without reservation that situations belong to the Lord and that He withholds no good from those who trust Him. This means that difficulty and even death may be what is best, but faith does not begrudge God this divine right, but rather invites it and places its hope, not in spite of it, but in it directly. Faith does not insist on salvation from circumstances or rather believes that salvation is not a matter of being pulled out of difficulty, but pulled up whatever difficulties get you down.

day no. 15,679: God causes us to triumph

2 Corinthians 2:14-17
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.

God causes us to triumph in Christ. In Christ there is no such thing as defeat. God won't allow it. This cross is defeat defeated. He promises conquest in the name of Christ. Yet, that victory cannot be detached from the Christ, who defeated sin, Satan, and death by first drinking the cup of death. However, He swallowed up death and left it behind in resurrection power and glory. Whether we live or die, we reign in Christ. It has been guaranteed. Reformation will take place; the seeds sown will sprout up to life. He has promised a harvest of ever-increasing fruitfulness for those who in faithfulness sow their blood, sweat, and tears. Just as His blood, sweat, and tears atone for our sins, ours now reflect our faith in His glorious triumph. Those who reject the increase of His kingdom will hear this news as bad and it will taste bitter in their mouths and ring hollow in their ears. Who is sufficient for this? Who can embody the message of eternal triumph? No one. But in Christ… anyone!

day no. 15,678: we die daily

"Throughout Scripture, sleeping is a type and image of death (e.g., 1 Cor. 11:30; 15:51), and it follows from this that waking up in the morning is an image of the resurrection. God knows that we are slow to grasp this lesson of death and resurrection, this daily reminder of His ultimate intention for us, and so He goes over the lesson again and again.

...Every day is a miniature life. Every day follows a pattern, and has a story arc, and if you live faithfully in the course of each day, you will be learning the very best way to go to sleep. For someone who works as he ought to, going to sleep is one of the most glorious experiences God gives to us. This should teach us about the death of God’s saints, and why God considers a faithful death precious. But this only works if the day is fruitful, and not squandered or frittered away in laziness and sin. And waking in the morning with the hope of a full day before us is even better than going to sleep was. But of course, this daily training program is only possible through Jesus Christ. He helps us form each daily letter on the page so that by the end of our lives, we will have written the larger story He has for us." - Douglas Wilson, Bone of My Bones

Every day is an entire life lived in microcosm. Our lives are made up of our days and our days are like an entire life lived. We wake up as though born as the light erupts on the horizon, we live as though alive as the light marches across the sky and we lay ourselves down as the light descends and the darkness again covers the landscape. We wake in Christian gratitude for being born again yet another day. We live in Christian faith for the day we've been given. We lay down in Christian hope of the resurrection and entrusting our day’s work to His forgiveness for our shortcomings and to His righteousness as our blanket.

Ephesians 5:14
Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

We die daily. But we also rise daily to new mercy and a reminder that He has conquered the grave. We have this daily reminder of His birth, life, death and resurrection on our behalf on display in our days. May we by grace and in faith appreciate this daily lesson and have our hearts full of "Thank You" as we live lives full of faithfulness and lay them down nightly entrusting our souls to the God of resurrection hope and glory, world without end... and amen!

day no. 15,677 continued... the thermostate

Genesis 8:22

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

It is a common occurrence. People fight over the thermostat. Someone prefers the room a little cooler while another has a blanket across their lap shivering. This struggle routinely takes place in the office and in the home. We work around it, dealing with less than ideal temperatures when necessary by wearing a sweater or having a fan on. We make it work.

But we have now entered a day and age where the state wants to play dad and adjust the thermostat to their liking, let us call it the Thermostate. They want to set the temperature for the rest of the world and they want the freedom to complain about the temperature of the sun. They've said that they're going to take it up with upper management. In the meantime, since they can't get that pesky Sun-owner to cool His jets, they are planning on unleashing a torrent of rules and regulations to do their part to manage the way we experience the sun's heat. 

They've previously demonstrated this proclivity in deciding for the world how many germs or how much sickness it tolerable, let's call that the germostat. They presume to have their finger on that temperature too. They are monitoring it constantly and checking over our labs as we speak. They say they'll get back to us, but in the meantime we're sit in the waiting room... patiently so to speak.

Let's be clear: Chovid and Climate change are the latest and greatest power grab in the ultimate pissing match over world's thermostat. Whether it be the number of germs in the air and our perception of them or the number of degrees over our heads and our perception of them, the State is making it's move to be what God has already claimed: sovereign.

“Once abolish the God and the government becomes the God.” - G.K. Chesterton

day no. 15,677: order in the court of affection

Colossians 3:5-7
Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.

"St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ‘ordinate affections’ or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful. In the Republic, the well-nurtured youth is one ‘who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age to reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her.’" -- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

All of us by nature are out of order, including our affections. We must mortify this malfunction through faith. We must receive instruction on what the proper order is. We must not only be wiling to be taught that there is a proper order, but we must be prepared to reorder our affections in order to conform ourselves to its proper order. In other words, we must mortify our inordinate affections by forcing them into their proper order. This will involve demoting some and promoting others. 

Proverbs 14:12, 16:25

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man,

but the end thereof are the ways of death.

The fact that there is a proper order is revelation. We need to know that we don't know, because before we do, we think we do. It is not something we would have discovered on our own. It is outside of us and reveals itself to us. It comes to us from without and demands to be accepted by us within.

Proverbs 12:15

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes:

but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.

Parents are called to nourish and discipline their children in the instruction of rightly ordered affections. We are to teach our children what is good, true and beautiful and cultivate a desire and affection for them. Our children need to be taught to identify the good, true and beautiful and they need to be taught to choose it over their base conceptions of what they imagine is best for themselves. It is training their hearts to align with reality as designed by God. It is urging them toward faith, to repent of their default disorderly desires and by faith to instruct their hearts towards what they ought to desire and in the proper order.

“A well-ordered life, regulated by God’s Word alone, through Christ alone, by faith alone, for God’s glory alone, is the only answer to our anxiety.” — John Calvin

day no. 15,676: here comes trouble

Job 5:7
Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.

As sure as heat rises, men gets into trouble. Sparks drift upwards from the fire and man drifts downwards into it. This is what it means to be a man. While we may not live long, our days are guaranteed to often feel long while also feeling too short. Either way, we feel the weight of living. We may not be able to hang on to many of our days, but we will all hoard up plenty of trouble. Our lives may not amount to much, but whatever they are, they will have much trouble.

Job 14:1
Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble.

To be alive is to be in trouble. Trouble is inescapable, a question of "what kind?" instead of "what if?" The difficulty comes in discovering that this isn't entirely bad. God made man for trouble. Granted, man made a great deal more of it for himself than was necessary by breaking covenant with God;but nevertheless, even in a perfect world, there was and would have been trouble. There was a wild world to gardenize, a bride to pursue, children to raise, crops to harvest, etc...

Lamentations 3:27

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

A little bit of trouble is good for a man. The trouble of naming all the animals was good. It was work and it introduced more trouble than if God just did it Himself. 

"It is the empty wagon that rattles." - Donald Grey Barnhouse

A wagon without a load groans and gripes at every bump in the road, but a wagon weighed down by a load rolls along without a word. The trouble of a heavy load heals the trouble of a bored soul. It is the young man with nothing to do that often finds himself in wrong kind of trouble. He would do well to be weighed down by the right kind and the sooner the better.

N.D. Wilson once pointed out that there is good trouble and bad trouble, God trouble and man trouble. In those distinctions, four kinds of trouble can be identified. Because there are two types of people: godly and ungodly, there will always be some kind of trouble. You can't be at peace with all peoples because all peoples are not at peace with each other.

Good God trouble is being given the commission to disciple the world by being fruitful and multiplying with you and your wife as the only two people on earth and the entire, unseen world to explore and cultivate.

Bad God trouble is being kicked out of the only civilized place in the entire world because rather than beginning the work of extending that pattern to the rest of creation, you introduced a new pattern which would extend over all creation - sin. Instead of spreading the good of the garden, rebellious man spread the sickness of sin over the globe.

Good man trouble is experiencing resistance from those who prefer the fallen world to the kingdom of God. It is the trouble of trying to disciple the nations and resisting their attempts to disciple you. This is a good kind of trouble to have inasmuch as it confirms your allegiance to God. In this sense, good man trouble is good because it comes from God, which also makes it good God trouble. This kind of trouble goes away if you go away from God, but it's the kind you gladly invite because it is the kind that comes from sticking by His side.

Bad man trouble is being at odds with someone else because of sin. This can be watching someone wilt under your criticism or wilting under the vitriol of someone else's.  It can be the temptation to bitterness or envy towards others or enduring their bitterness or envy of you. It is not the kind of trouble you want to be in and it is the kind you should attempt to get out of or avoid if possible. When it is your sin causing it, repent and attempt reconciliation and restitution where necessary and/or possible. If it is someone else's, forgive them. When you follow God your attempts to be at peace with others may not always prosper, but you can only do what you can do. That said, you must do what you can do 

Romans 12:18

If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.

day no. 15,675: principles come to a point

"Principles do not fight by themselves. Principles are always incarnate in a particular method." -- Douglas Wilson, Rules for Reformers

Our theology always comes out of our fingertips and our fingertips end up doing the fighting. Our principles make themselves manifest in our methods. What we believe becomes how we behave. All that to say, it is not only essential that we get a hold of the right principles, but that they get a hold of us. Simply nodding your skull in assent to the power of a particular principle is not the same as moving your skeleton into a particular practice as a result of believing said principle.

"All good things come to a point, swords for instance." -- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

You cannot swing a principle at your enemy, but you can swing a sword. Yet you shouldn't swing a sword unless you have a principled reason for doing so. It should go without saying that you should have a good reason to swing sharp objects around. So principles must swing if they want to do any damage and swinging must be predicated on principle, lest it be reduced to butchery.

day no. 15,674 continued... not dirty until proven clean

I am not ceremonially unclean.

Crapitalism has turned the market place into a place of worship. Once upon a time, money changers turned the place of worship into a marketplace; nowadays, the marketplace is the place of worship. And just like then, we need Jesus to fashion a cord of whips and drive out the rabble. 

The temple of Mammon has held council and considered that new membership requirements are needed to continue to participate. The old agreements have been shredded and no one is being grandfathered in or exonerated for good behavior and time served (unless you are of the priestly caste, in which case, needless to say, some rules and regulations may not apply).

I am not a proselyte of your religion. You cannot excommunicate me. I am not a member of your congregation. The free market does not belong to you, but to free men freely exercising their God-given abilities. Your cancellations are not tantamount to excommunication. You have no ecclesiastical authority over me. I am not a devotee of your demonology. 

All that to say, I do not need to prove that I’m safe. I am not dangerous until proven safe. I am not dirty until proven clean. I am not guilty until proven innocent. I am not a problem until proven compliant. And I am not sorry.

Additionally, I am not your lab rat.

You cannot poke or prod me without my consent. "No!," means, "No." Anything short of you keeping your hands off of me is rape. You've heard my reply. I wasn't unclear. No. You do not have the right to perform spot checks on my person. I did not sign up to be someone else's pin cushion. I never agreed to the terms and conditions. I never scrolled down and checked the box. I have to prove I'm not a robot in order to check my e-mail, but I have to prove I am a robot in order to continue employment? You cannot run tests on me intermittently for some satanic side hustle you’ve got in the works. I do not need to prove that I'm not sick and I do not need to be subjected to regular spot checks to ensure I haven't been contaminated. You cannot quarantine the healthy in order to safeguard the sick. 

The Nuremberg Code (1947)

Permissible Medical Experiments

The great weight of the evidence before us to effect that certain types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept within reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical profession generally. The protagonists of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic principles must be observed in order to satisfy moral, ethical and legal concepts:

1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.

The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs, or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.

day no. 15,674: ordered in affairs and original in work

In reading The Art of Manliness, Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues by Brett McKay, I came across the following quotes,

"Be regular and orderly in your daily affairs that you may be violent and original in your work." -- Gustave Flaubert

If you are reliable and consistent in that which you can easily anticipate, you can be original and creative in that which has not been anticipated. Properly ordered affections prove lethal to what would come against them; whereas, disordered affections prove lethal to the one who possesses them. Ordered priorities march in order to expand one's influence; whereas, disordered priorities trip all over themselves. The disciplined hand is capable of greater creativity; the disciplined mind better suited to produce ingenious ideas. To enjoy the freedom of rhetoric, you must be regimented in your approach to grammar. The grammar of life mastered makes way for the fun of rhetoric enjoyed. 

day no. 15,673: swing and amiss

In reading The Art of Manliness, Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues by Brett McKay, I came across the following quotes,

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas Edison

Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might

Some opportunities are missed out on due to laziness, while others are missed by never being manufactured. There are moments that only hard work could take captive, but there are also moments that only hard work can create. Many opportunities come and go because they seem too hard at the moment, but there are other opportunities which, as a result, never come.

In other words, if you miss out on planting the seed today, you will miss out on harvesting the fruit tomorrow.

day no. 15,672: making hay with our moments

In reading The Art of Manliness, Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues by Brett McKay, I came across the following quotes,

"Great men have ever been misers of moments." -- Orison Swett Marden, Pushing to the Front

Great men are made in the moments lesser men toss away. Greatness doesn't require more than 24 hours a day, only making the most of the hours every man is already given.

Ephesians 5:15-16
See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

But it takes intention to realize the potential of a minute. It takes initiative and faith to see a lifetime hidden inside a second. Anyone can squander a moment, but only the intentional can seize one.

Psalm 90:12
So teach us to number our days, 
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

So humility is needed if our days are to be redeemed and our moments gathered to make hay.

"The present time is the raw material out of which we make whatever we will." -- Orison Swett Marden, Pushing to the Front

Margins are required between activities in order to avoid being fragile. Too little margin means disaster when God intervenes with unforeseen interruptions. But a plan to redeem the margins when they aren't needed is also required if time is not to be wasted. A wise man plans for margins, but also has a plan to put the margins to work if they shouldn't be required.

"As Fenelon says, 'God never gives but one moment at a time, and does not give a second until He withdraws the first.'" -- Orison Swett Marden, Pushing to the Front

Psalm 39:4
Lord, make me to know mine end,
and the measure of my days, what it is;
that I may know how frail I am.

James 4:14
For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

God grants the mist to exist, but it would do well to take note of how quickly it evaporates. It is God's grace to permit the mist to exist, but also in revealing to it that it's time is short-lived.

day no. 15,671: ungardened

Genesis 3:16-20
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

God made man from the dust of the garden. He breathed His Spirit into the dust He had formed and it became a living being. God then made woman from the side of the man. He removed his rib and formed it into a woman. In the woman, He planted a garden. So when He led her to the first man, He was presenting the man with a fruit of the garden that had in itself another garden. The man was made from garden and so the woman was made from man who was made of garden, but in her He planted another garden.

As a result of sin, all the gardens of earth were cursed. All the gardens were ungardened.

The garden inside the woman would now be full of the thorns and thistles of labor and delivery. The sorrow and pain of bringing forth fruit from her garden would be multiplied. Making and multiplying disciples would now be a much more painful endeavor. 

The garden itself would now be full of thorns and thistles. The ground would not gladly give up its yield without producing prickly reminders of what went wrong in refusing to walk in covenant faith and obedience with God. The ground was cursed and the garden suffered.

The garden that was animated man would now sweat and toil and labor with great exhaustion to bring forth fruit from the soil. He was Spirit-powered garden and his land was now cursed and would respond to his poor leadership with poor followship. And the garden of life where abundance was created by God would now end in death. Where fruit and life and vigor and joy and glory once grew, death and evaporation and sin would fight for real estate. Weeds would now crowd out the wheat where it could.

day no. 15,670: poetic potential

Colossians 1:16-17
By him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

The thought occurred to me today (April 27, 2020) that history may be a chiasm. This is not a prophecy or meant to imply any particular course of action, but only to document a particular poetic possibility that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, may be the pivot point and hinge of all chronological human history. 

In a chiasm, the center point is typically the main point. So when the set up is 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 for example, 3 would be the pivot point and emphasis of the entire chiasm. It would be the hinge on which the whole thing turned, the pivot point on which all the pressure is emphasized and realized. It is the point which everything before it lead up to and the point from which all things afterwards extend from. It is the center of gravity of the entire endeavor. 1 and 2 build up to 3 and 2 and 1 flow immediately out of it. The symmetry of 1 and 2 being reflected in 2 and 1 demonstrate how the build up complements the release and how the trajectory of the one produced the momentum of the latter.

All that to say, if Christ's life, death and resurrection occurred roughly 4,000 years into history, that would lead to 4,000 years to follow. Again, this is not a prediction and not meant in any way to imply this is what God is up to or something He has told or revealed to me. This was merely a passing thought about poetry and how the beauty of a chiasm would be evidenced in the return of Jesus roughly 4,000 years after His ascension in order to make His time among us as the Word made flesh in His living, dying and rising again the pivot point, linchpin and hinge on which all time and eternity turn. 

That is to say if it manifested itself in the form of a chiasm. The fact of that matter is already determinedly, fixedly, inexorably true: Jesus' life, death, resurrection and ascension is the center and watershed of all time and history. Whether or not God were to write the story of earth in this particular poetic fashion, two facts still remain: (1) Jesus' life, death and resurrection are the focus of all existence and (2) our story is being written in beautiful prose. In other words, a chiasm is not the only poetic possibility, but Jesus is the only possible point on which everything turns. This form of poetry may not be how our story ends up being written, but our story is being written poetically, one way or another.

Romans 11:36
For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

day no. 15,669: courage is a current event

"That is why courage is always needed in the moment. Courage is a present virtue. Looking at past instances of courage is boasting, and looking at how courageous you will be in the future is daydreaming. Courage is now. Courage brings liberty, and liberty, to summarize Orwell, means the right to tell people things that they don’t want to hear." -- Douglas Wilson, Understanding Panic Porn in the Aftermath

Everyone prefers courage to cowardice. No one brags about cowardice. Everyone, therefore, wants to see themselves as courageous. But as Wilson points out, courage is always required right now. Courage is a current event. It is nothing to be courageous in retrospect. To invent courage in reverse is merely cowardice in a lion costume. Courage is not required yesterday or tomorrow, it is required now. To round out your resume with past episodes of courage is arrogance. To fill today's requirement with promissory notes about tomorrow's faith is foolishness. Faith is always required right now. Courage is always necessary this minute. 

day no. 15,668: you must fight about something

1 Timothy 6:12
Fight the good fight of the faith. 

2 Timothy 4:7
I have fought the good fight

In order to fight the good fight, you must not fight about everything, but must fight about something.

If you fight about everything, if you are pugnacious and a pugilist, you are not fighting the good fight. You are just a fighter. You have no discernment between what is a good fight and what is a bad fight or something not even worth fighting over. You are just looking for a fight and one fight is as good as another. All fights in your eyes are good by definition. But that is not what Paul had in mind. There is a fight which is good and it is good to fight it, but it isn't the only kind of fighting. The kind of fighting which opposes it for example.

Additionally, to fight the good fight, you must fight. You can avoid fighting unnecessary fights by pacifism, but you cannot participate in godly warfare. Pacifism cannot obey the admonition to fight. It avoids one pit by guaranteeing that it falls into another. The good fight is a fight and it will require fighters and fighting.  It assumes a loyalty to your side and an opposition to the side that opposes yours. It is a love of the brotherhood and a hatred of evil. It is a delight in the light and a disdain for the darkness. 

In order to fight the good fight, you must be selective in what you fight and severe enough to fight for what you've selected. You must resist the urge to get sucked into other skirmishes and the temptation to keep your hands from getting dirty.

The good fight is the one God defines and is fought by the faith God provides.

day no. 15,667: forget thee not

"This do in remembrance of me." - 1 Corinthians 11:24

"It seems then, that Christians may forget Christ! There could be no need for this loving exhortation, if there were not a fearful supposition that our memories might prove treacherous... Forget him who never forgot us! Forget him who poured his blood forth for our sins! Forget him who loved us even to the death! Can it be possible? Yes, it is not only possible, but conscience confesses that it is too sadly a fault with all of us." -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

God commands to our weakness and for the benefit of others. He would not have to command us to remember Him if we weren't likely to forget. And He has tied this remembering to a particular practice - the Lord's Supper. We are to regularly break bread and partake of the cup in remembrance of Him. Celebrating communion on a weekly basis assists in developing a regular cadence of remembering. It is, of course, possible for routine to create a callous, but it also makes possible increased dexterity and capacity. Fingers trained by repetition develop padding to prevent injury from frequent use, but they also develop dexterity and ability that idle hands could never acquire. Idle hands may be softer, but that is not a complement to their design.

day no. 15,666: an army with banners

Song of Songs 6:10
Who is she that looketh forth as the morning,
fair as the moon, clear as the sun,
and terrible as an army with banners?

An army with banners on your horizon and in your opposition is a terrible prospect. Think of all that is implied by an army with banners.

This is not something that sprung up overnight. This is not some flash mob saber rattling. This is an organized group of soldiers marching on your world.

If they have banners, plural, they are uniform -- each bearing the same colors and symbols. This army is unified under a single head and carry with them the traditions of their fathers. At some point, their ancestors decided what they would stand for and what best represented this in symbol. This symbol has a shape and a form consistent with who they are. The design was discussed and agreed upon, materials in keeping with the motif were gathered and assembled by diligent, dedicated, dexterous hands, and quality control measures were implemented to ensure continuity so as to result in banners, plural, uniform in saying the exact same thing. 

An army with banners is large enough to spare some of their men for the sole purpose of brandishing these banners. They have prioritized their organizing principles enough to have banners and to set men aside to waive them. This displays not only the organization of a formidable opponent, but the prioritization of a potentially lethal one.

If you're going to have to face an army, you'd prefer them not to have banners. Banners declare organization, prioritization, tenacity and tradition. This army arrives to fight under and for a banner. The individuals have given their lives to this, but they fight for something more than just there individual lives. They fight for the kingdom their banner represents, for their brothers standing next to them under the same banner, for the people who live under that same banner back at home, for the principles and ideals which these banners represent, and for the lives and traditions of all those who lived and died under these same banners before them.

In short, an army with banners on your horizon and in your opposition is a terrible prospect.

A Christian woman of this character is the glory of her company and a terror to her opposition. The kingdom of darkness trembles at the sight of her on their horizon. May we raise our daughters as we raise our banners, for His glory and our neighbor's good. May our young women aspire to be the right kind of terrible, the kind that God finds delightful and the world finds dreadful. May the banner of the good, true and beautiful waive above them and on their heads as they wage war in their feminine strength of building homes that build communities that build countries that conquer the world. 

Women are born with generations and nations within them.

day no. 15,665: worship or warfare because worship is warfare

God shall arise and by His might put all His enemies to flight;
In conquest shall He quell them.
Let those who hate Him, scattered, flee before His glorious majesty
For God Himself shall fell them.
-- Huguenot Battle Hymn, Cantus Christi

These rhymes derive their life from Psalm 68:1-3

Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered:
Let them also that hate him flee before him.
As smoke is driven away, so drive them away:
As wax melteth before the fire,
So let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God:
Yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.

When it comes to Jesus it is either worship or warfare. This is because worship IS warfare. If you are not worshiping Him, you are at war with Him. If you are are worshiping Him, you are at war with what opposes Him. Enmity is hard-wired into the system by God the Father. We must fight because our Father does and we must not fall further from the apple tree than we already have.

day no. 15,664: vengeance belongs to God, thou shalt not steal.

Romans 12:19
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

Vengeance belongs to God. The reason we are commanded not to take it is because it already belongs to Him. The Bible forbids theft.

Exodus 20:15
Thou shalt not steal.

Vengeance belongs to God. If you take it, you steal it from Him.

Some try to keep you from taking revenge by saying that taking vengeance is wrong. But that is only half true. Vengeance is not evil. It is not wrong to take revenge. It is wrong for US to take revenge. If it were wrong, then God would be wrong to take it. Revenge is not evil, it is God's. It is wrong if we take it or try to exact it. It's not ours to take.

day no. 15,663: false positive

1 Timothy 3:8-13
Likewise must the deacons be grave, not doubletongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre; holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. And let these also first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless. Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things. Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

A deacon is to a deaconess what a king is to a queen. They are not merely the same thing with different genders. A deaconess is not simply the name of a female occupying a familiar office anymore than a queen is merely a female king. There is no such thing as a female king. There is such a thing as a queen, but to have a queen is not the same thing as to have a king anymore than to have a deaconess is the same as to have a deacon. They are not interchangeable. A false positive is not the same as a true negative.

day no. 15,662: I live, I die, in me, for me

Galatians 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Our lives are defined by our use of "I" and "Me."

As per usual, we have gotten these exactly backwards. Since we are born bent we call evil, "good" and good, "evil" by default. We think of "I" the way we should think of "me" and "me" the way we ought to think of "I."

I do things.

Things happen to me.

I is a subject.

Me is an object.

I acts.

Me is acted upon.

We think we're taking action where we're being acted upon and we believe we're being acted upon precisely where we need to take action. So we use the word "I" to describe all of that for which we imagine we deserve credit and "me" to explain where someone else deserves blame. 

1 Corinthians 15:31

I die daily.

Rebirth and regeneration restore proper perspective and help us to see "me" as an opportunity to give credit to someone else and "I" to explain where I am to blame. We see we're being acted upon in our "I" and we're to take action in our "me" to forgive others.

We are to die to ourselves and live for others.

We must die to our "I's" and our “me's" and live as His "My’s” and for His "another's."

day no. 15,661: the righteous cannot stay down

Micah 7:8
Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy:
when I fall, I shall arise;
when I sit in darkness,
the LORD shall be a light unto me.

We fight the good fight not afraid to fall for by faith we believe that we shall rise. We know that if we die, we rise; so either way, we win. God either grants us the victory in seeing our enemies defeated or we die by their hands in faithful battle and rise to see them defeated by our sacrifice.

Psalm 20:7-8
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses:
but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
They are brought down and fallen:
but we are risen, and stand upright.

The faithful fight and when they fall, they rise. Our hope is not that we cannot fall, but that we cannot stay down. The righteous can be knocked down, but they cannot remain down. We do not believe we are owed health, wealth or prosperity. Rather we believe that we cannot remain sick, poor or taken advantage of forever. We believe the meek will inherit God's green earth because it's His to give and He has already promised. And God does not renege. 

Psalm 37:23-24
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord:
and he delighteth in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down:
for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.

It may be God's good will to allow His good men to fall, but it is never His will to leave them where they lay. The Lord keeps those who fall in faith from falling indefinitely. He breaks their fall by breaking the Fall and gives them a hand by raising them again to stand in His presence.

Proverbs 24:15-16
Lay not wait, O wicked man,
against the dwelling of the righteous;
spoil not his resting place:
for a just man falleth seven times,
and riseth up again:
but the wicked shall fall into mischief.

The man made just by living in faith cannot be kept down. He may fall, even up to seven times, but he rises yet again. He cannot stay fallen. Faith rises. Resurrection destroys insurrection every time. You cannot end that which can renew. But the wicked fall without anyone to catch them. They fall and their fallenness cannot help them rise. They do not live in hope of resurrection, so when they crash, they remain wrecked, when they fall, they stay down. All who live in resurrection power survive whatever setbacks they experience and rise again in life that cannot be held by death since the One who holds them could not Himself be held by it.

day no. 15,660: the script flipped

“Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution...Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.” 
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

We regularly flip the script. We find it easy to confess our sins to God and difficult to confess them to our family and friends. This reveals that we do not understand the seriousness of sin or the holiness of God. God is the last place we should feel safe being laid bare. No one hates sin more than God and no one has more authority to judge it than Him. Our neighbor is the first place we should feel safe confessing our sins. No one can relate better to our depravity than our friends and no one has less reason or authority to judge us than them. But in Christ, we can approach the throne of grace with boldness and our neighbor in humility. We have no reason to fear either because we are free from all condemnation in Christ.

day no. 15,659: a second saved is a second burned

In reading The Art of Manliness, Manvotionals: Timeless Wisdom and Advice on Living the 7 Manly Virtues by Brett McKay, I came across the following quote,

"Time: with it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it. You wake up in the morning, and lo! your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours! It is yours.... No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive.... You cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you. If one can't contrive to live on a certain income of money, one earns a little more --- or steals it. One doesn't necessarily muddle one's life because one can't quite manage on a thousand pounds a year. But if one cannot arrange that an income of twenty-four hours a day shall exactly cover all proper items of expenditure, one does muddle one's life definitely." — Arnold Bennet, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

My wife often says, "Live your priorities" in referring to this principle. You must budget your hours. Just like you must tell your money where you want it to go, so you must tell your time where to be spent. If you don't, it will still be spent. You can't save some for later. You can't borrow against tomorrow. You can't make more of it, but you can make the most of it.

Ephesians 5:15-17

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

You can turn a profit on your time, but it's fruit is not the same as its root. The reward of time well sown is not 30, 60 or 100 fold return. Time is spent at the exchange rate of sixty seconds per minute regardless of investment strategy. Some will get more out of their time, but no one gets more time per day as their reward. A penny saved may be a penny earned, but a second saved is merely a second burned. 

Ecclesiastes 9:11
Time and chance happens to them all.

Matthew 6:27
Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

day no. 15,658: feelings don't do anything

Be instant in season, out of season. — 2 Timothy 4:2

"Many of us suffer from the morbid tendency to be instant ‘out of season.’ The season does not refer to time, but to us. ‘Be instant in season, out of season,’ whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would do nothing for ever and ever. There are unemployables in the spiritual domain, spiritually decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.

One of the great snares of the Christian worker is to make a fetish of his rare moments. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you say — ‘Now I will always be like this for God.’ No, you will not, God will take care you are not. Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best, you become an intolerable drag on God; you will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously inspired. If you make a god of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life and never come back until you do the duty that lies nearest, and have learned not to make a fetish of your rare moments." -- Oswald Chamber, My Utmost for His Highest

When we are riding a spiritual high, we feel like we could and would do anything for Jesus, but when we are feeling that way we typically sit back and just enjoy soaking in the feeling. When we are experiencing a spiritual low, we long for the days where we felt like we could or would do anything for Jesus. Either way, if we orient our spirituality around highs and lows, nothing gets done for Jesus - whether we feel like it or not.

At our best, we only imagine we could or would do anything; and at our worst, we can't imagine wanting to do anything ever again. Feelings-based, experientially-emphasized spirituality never amounts to anything. It can't... and it doesn't really want to. It just wants the experience of inspiration back without ever actually aspiring to do anything more than that with it.

day no. 15,657: the joy of the elect

Matthew 16:13-17
When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” And they said, “Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.” He saith unto them, “But whom say ye that I am?” And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered and said unto him, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”

"Thou art a happy man, that thou art not ignorant of this, that I am Christ, the Son of the Living God. Thou art distinguishingly happy. Others are blinded, and have dark and deluded apprehensions, as you have now given an account, some thinking that I am Elias, and some that I am Jeremais, and some one thing, and some another; but none of them thinking right, all of them misled. Happy art thou, that art so distinguished as to know the truth in this matter." -- Jonathan Edwards, Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, Shown to be both a Scriptural and Rational Doctrine from Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards edited by H. Norman Gardiner

There is knowledge that can only be given by God. There are things that cannot be known in any other way than if God should instruct. God has given man much to know and much that can be communicated from one to the next; but knowledge of this sort, that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of the Living God, can only be revealed to a soul below by God above. Flesh and blood cannot decipher this. True happiness is in knowing what only God can teach and believing in what only God could reveal and receiving what only God could give, Jesus Christ.

"There is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man can't have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind." -- Jonathan Edwards, Divine and Supernatural Light, Immediately Imparted to the Soul by the Spirit of God, Shown to be both a Scriptural and Rational Doctrine from Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards edited by H. Norman Gardiner

day no. 15,656 continued... Chesterton on point and decades ahead of the game as per usual

"In America some educational enthusiasts did really announce with pride that the children in particular school were 'all health-mad.' This meant, it really and truly meant, that the infants are in an intense state of vigilance and concentrated excitement on the problem of the preservation of their own bodily health; on how to for see indigestion or mark the stages of cold. And the man meant, he really and truly meant,that this was a condition on which they were to be congratulated. So that, instead of toy helmets or toy swords, they would have toy goggles and toy respirators; possibly little toy bottles of disinfectant or even toy hypodermic syringe. That anybody should be mad on anything is not exactly the goal and ideal of all mental science. That anybody should be mad on health is always of all things the most unhealthy. That children should be mad on health is something so horrible that one would hardly dream of it, outside some such torture-chamber as the tale called 'The Turn of the Screw'; where children are possessed of devils. Yet I repeat that I read the boast with my own eyes in an American paper, as a report of the success of a hygienic educational campaign. It was some silly stuff about sending a clown round to give serious advice on hygiene, enlivened with jokes; I bet the jokes were not so amusing as the serious remarks." -- G.K. Chesterton, The Madhouse and the Nursery, 1921

day no. 15,656: one more party

Luke 15:11-14
And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.

The younger son did not have a problem finding parties. He knew where to find them and what made for fun ones. He spent a lot of money and had a lot of fun. He lived it up in riotous, reckless revelry. And then... the money ran out. Lavish living can only last for so long without a means to support it. The young man then was forced to finally sober up because the the storehouse wore out. He woke up dry one day because his means had all dried up.

Luke 15:17-20
But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father.

Having partied hard left this young man on hard times and so... with head hung low, he headed home. He learned his lesson. The harder they party, they harder they fall. The higher the high, the harder the crash. Certainly his father would agree, right?

Luke 15:22-24
But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

Who would have guessed that what this young man needed was one more party? Who would have imagined that another feast was in order? Wasn't partying the problem in the first place? Wasn't feasting what got him into so much trouble?

What Jesus reveals to us here is that we have all longed for the wrong kind of party. We have set our hearts on riotous living, imaging it as the pinnacle of delight, but what Jesus reveals here is that we've desired a backyard balloon artist when a circus tent of celebration is being offered. We have preferred watered down whiskey to the hard stuff. So our solution is not less parties, but better ones. Not "no more partying," but "one more good one!"

God's grace is to throw a party for a son who comes to his senses after discovering that his parties couldn't last forever. When God throws a party, the wine is sweeter, the food is fatter and the lights never go out; the senses are never dulled by drunken insatiability, but elevated by sober gratitude.

The young man looked for life in being the life of the party, but discovered life in being invited to a party thrown by someone else.

The seed form of this thought came from a comment Doug Wilson made in passing HERE.

day no. 15,655: the harmony of the spheres

2 Chronicles 26:16-20
But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the LORD his God and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. But Azariah the priest went in after him, with eighty priests of the LORD who were men of valor, and they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, "It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the LORD God." Then Uzziah was angry. Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the LORD, by the altar of incense. And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead! And they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the LORD had struck him.

Uzziah was the King, but not every square inch of his Kingdom was his per se. The real estate on which the temple was built fell within his boundaries, but the responsibilities and authority within its wall were not within his jurisdiction. The King was not a priest and as such was not permitted to act in that capacity. While the priest would fall under the king's dominion as a citizen of his kingdom, the king was under his jurisdiction when in the temple as a member of his congregation. There, the priests were the king's superiors. The king was their charge and they were his champion.

Uzziah made the mistake of assuming his sway in one sphere of governance granted him access to the same sway in another. Rather than acknowledging the harmony of the spheres God created, he attempted to create for himself a world played on one string -- presuming, of course, that he was to be the one pulling and plucking it.