Always searching for the words to describe breakthrough -- opening doors -- divine intervention in our 'safe-rooms' of pain and loss. Always searching for words, and also actions. How can you and I, dear listener, become like Edwin Starr in 1965: our own "Agent Double-O-Soul" for the sake of ... the world?

Well, first, you need to be an object of love. Not the subject of love -- i.e., the lover. No, we need to be the object of love. Belovedness is the First Law of Physics when it comes to the human heart. All else is resistible exhortation. Being loved engenders love in return. That goes for about 99 % of the human race.

Second, we need to (ultimately) perceive that everything which happens is part of the Plan. I cannot say that to someone who is in the midst of overwhelming pain and loss.
But experience has taught yours truly, at least, that in most cases of personal suffering, there is something beyond the initial facts which is purposive. Please, don't stone me!
It's just that life has turned out that way. And not just for Mary and me, but for almost everyone to whom we have sought to bring empathy in the midst of insuperability.

Third, and finally, it turns out that God often needs us to take the first step. It's often a small step, even a tiny step -- but it is a step nevertheless. Can't quite yet integrate this with my Reformation theology, but it is true empirically. The mountain doesn't seem to move until and unless we have taken a step towards it -- i.e., from out of our inertia. This is just a fact. Maybe you, dear listener, can find a way to say it better.

Oh, and Podcast 409 is dedicated to Brad Knight, a minister to whom I feel warmly close, and closely linked. LUV U.

Episode 409 - Agent Double-O Soul