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I Just Can’t Wait to be King

September 3, 2021 by Brian Shipman in Contemplative Christianity, Spirituality Post Comment

To share out your soul freely, that is what metanoia (a change of mind, or repentance) really refers to: a mental product of love. A change of mind, or love for the undemonstrable. And you throw off every conceptual cloak of self-defense, you give up the fleshly resistance of your ego. Repentance has nothing to do with self-regarding sorrow for legal transgressions. It is an ecstatic erotic self-emptying. A change of mind about the mode of thinking and being. Christos Yannaras

The default mode of living for the ego is to establish itself as the center of the universe. To be king. Now. Without any more delay.

And when we choose to accept this quest of the ego as the default mode of thinking and being, we enter a life of ceaseless contention with the circumstances that thwart us and the people who can’t wait to be king themselves.

Blinded by this ambition, we trudge forward every day, analyzing our headway and modifying our strategy. It’s an exhausting and rarely fulfilling way to live. The few that do seem to make it become our idols and give us hope that we, too, can make it to the top.

And yet, though the ego knows no other way to live, the soul does. There exists within us a divine calling to shed the ego’s skin and become our true selves. And this mode of thinking and being is antithetical to the ego’s understanding. It is beyond thought, a concept captured in the Greek word metanoia.

The soul’s way of living involves letting go of the incessant campaign to be king and living another way – a way that exists beyond thought. It is the way of transformation.

Source Scripture

Four Score: John 5:31-40
Real Love Awaits: John 5:41-47
Relinquish Control: Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5
On the Other Hand: Matthew 12:9-14; Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-11
Spacing Out: Matthew 12:15-21; Mark 3:7-12
Learning by Immersion Mark 3:13-19; Luke 6:12-16

David Waits to be King: 1 Samuel 8 – 2 Samuel 2