On Being a Witness

  

Good Evening

Way back in 2007 an act of kindness placed me in a position to be a witness at a trial against a woman who was DUI crashed only yards from a school buss stop.

At 7 a.m. donning my best attire I dressed and medicated this body of mine with the antibiotics given for bronchitis and sinus infection. That infection only 18 hours earlier was instructed to 'sit and rest' for 48 hours. With the prosecutes office closed yesterday the letter that told me to call the day before was a mute point. So under the threat of arrest so the day began.

Once the car was parked under the court house garage a long walk around the building, then through security the elevator took me to the floor with the prosecutors office on it. After sitting sometime for the attorney had not arrived yet. (mind you I had to arrive at 7:30 a.m.). Once again the trial was postponed. Stunned at the defense tactics to wear out the witnesses we stood slack jawed. This folks is common place. Good witnesses are worn to attitudes of hands in the air.

Why help if this is the course of action when you do?

I will tell you why....

We are called to do what is right. By choice we will see, hear and experience life. We will either be a silent source or a vocal witness of what is truth. We as witnesses to what is holy will be silent or speak. Now mind you what we have to say will be stalled and even halted by the defense of the darkness that wants to be witness free at any cost to what is holy. 

When it is the darkness that bears witness it will be plastered all over the news, papers  and media for all to see. It will then be what we testify of in our daily life, through what we see, say and experience, even if vicariously. It is before our minds blocking out the beauty of the divine.

What the right standing witness will note is that the conviction of our witness will pull in the consequences of those who do evil, error or just plain have wounded minds and hearts.

We are the witness not the jurors or judge. It is not for us to defend or prosecute but to simply testify.

Those who can or do not hear the testimony of our witness to all things Holy will play those roles however. Those who make you prove out your testimony. They defend or prosecute the things witnessed. The jurors will pool and also design a verdict. Often at the mounting evidence before them based in the darkness that would to consume them.

 

At times even biased through eyes that have witness of  a 'where was God when...?'

 Their judgment comes then to them through the bias, wound or plain disbelief. How can any goodness withstand those who testify all of evil and darkness. What they see then is how fallen ALL of man kind must be. A bias of a false truth. For not all of man is in a fallen state. Those who are covered under the jurisdiction of grace remain. Those He has called by name who have not heard yet of HIS name.

Yet to testify based on kindness not a desire to be punitive just might save a life.

I play this a parallel to what is spiritual.

Driving home this morning considering the consistent inconvenience of the postponements of this trial year after year I thought how wherry we can become in doing what is right. The kids were told on scene back then as well as this morning no matter what we do what we know is right to do.

I felt a well of compassion for the defendant. An annoyance at the tactics enacted by the defense to wear us all out (both literally and spiritually figurative). I am the last standing witness of all the police and ER staff. 

Last standing.

Yet I stand.

At threat of incarceration if I do not show up.

The witness under threat.

Isn't this how we are in our testimony in Christ of the things we have witnesses in Him.

We are worn by the defense of error and ignorance.

We grieve when God is blamed as a defendant. We are wishing for mercy on those who suffer.

Worn by the time lines of 'trials' in our own lives, and in the lives of others around us.

Set to consequence if we deny our witness or refuse to do so.

Tempted to attitudes when the guilty get away with their actions when we who are innocent witnesses are forced to have our lives inconvenienced or even threatened.

Then if we do not let it wear us out we become compelled to compassion and base our testimony of the guilty into an intercession on their behalf. Never to waver from the truth witnessed but to do so without malice.

Don your best attire (both internal and out) go out and tell of all that you have seen, heard and witnessed in HIM.

Do so without letting the trials make you give up acquiring a fine in doing so.

It is by the WORD of God and the testimony  our mouth we will overcome evil.

If we do not bear witness it is then we will be under threat by the imprisonment through our own conscience. 

May I always be standing.