Pilgrim Soldier

In the January/February 2008 issue of the Officer publication, which I seem to get despite not being a commissioned officer, the editorial issued a challenge for officers to write articles about:

…how to be holy when we get out of the house and ‘test our style and morality in the mire of the times’

I wouldn’t consider writing an article for the Officer, partly because I would fully expect a rejection slip but also because it wouldn’t be accepted as I’m not an officer. So instead I get to post my thoughts here instead!

Basically the challenge has been there in the back of my mind for the last few weeks ever since I read the article. This has probably been helped by the fact that I’ve been preaching on the subject for the last few months. One thing I’ve realised that if holiness isn’t practical and based firmly in our life outside the house in the ‘mire of the times’, then its not really holiness at all. You see holiness is a bit like the wind, you can only really see because of the effect it has.

Firstly, holiness is a gift from God. It is not something that can be attained through adhering to the rules, no not even to the Army’s Orders and Regulations. Holiness can only be given to us by the One that is Holy. Secondly, its about being fully human, being the human we were created to be, just as Jesus is.

Now having got this out of the way, I come to the real thought of the post. Back in 1995/96 I was on the Frontline course that was run by the Oasis Trust and The Salvation Army. During my year I was introduced to Celtic Christianity and it touched a real chord within me and I picked up a number of books. After reading them once most of these ended up on the shelves and during our time in Latvia gathered dust. However, this week I picked up one of them again because of where my mind is and as I was reading I found this gem of a comment,

He [Aidan] was a man who had an infectious holiness, which, far from making him remote and other worldly, enabled him to mix with all kinds of people and to understand their world. They could believe in his message because he was a person whose life-style was transparently attractive to all who were seeking God.
Mitton, M., Restoring the Woven Cord - pg 16

How’s that for a testimony of someone’s life. Holiness was so evident in Aidan that it came across as infectious. People could ‘catch’ holiness of him because of the way he lived his life. Of equal interest is that his holiness opened him up to other people, who wanted to spend time with him and helped him to understand their world. This in many ways mirrors the sort of life that Jesus led, and leads me to think that the test of someone’s holiness is how attractive they are to others and how that holiness rubs off on them.