Failure is not an Option

These are serious matters, and I’m like a jester lighting fires and walking in the sparks I arouse. Let’s agree, for the moment, that Lucifer had been perfect until a random fault arose in his thoughts, profaning the pristine whole and refashioning him as a victim by opening the gates of his inner being to all kinds of imperfection. How might he have defended himself against this invasive force that had caused him to fall short? He was
the covering cherub! A mighty being, what had he missed? Even for
him to have contemplated a scenario that could turn him into a victim
would have been faithless doubt, an error in and of itself! If he was at
fault for falling prey to iniquity, he could offer no excuse in his defense without bringing accusation against the father. Matters of faith are wholly in the father’s hands, and faith is therefore entirely his to give or to withhold.

We know that Lucifer acted in faith by two points. First, the father said that he had been perfect in all his ways. Because it’s impossible to please the father without faith, the father’s praise is evidence the angel had been faithful. Second, he held his peace and didn’t chafe at the judgment, but accepted the father’s righteousness without question. Offering no defense, he relied on the father’s faithfulness, his goodness, his grace.

There’s a diligence that stems from the desire for self-preservation, just as there’s a resignation that’s the ultimate expression of faith, as it’s written, “greater love has no man than this, that he lays his life down for his friends.” The gospels warn that willful discipline, though seeming right, can war against faith by nullifying the father’s counsel.

If Lucifer had been performing his duties under the calculation that his performance gave him reason to boast and that he expected to maintain competence through willpower, a plainly pejorative judgment against the imperfection found in him would have been forthcoming. Had he taken the bit between his teeth and looked to himself on behalf of himself, he would have essentially dared hla to intervene, and the fiery cherub would have set heaven ablaze with glib gossip and pious posturing as every angel looked to his own advantage without regard for his fellows.

If a claim of diligence had been acceptable, it would have established justification for pride, opening Lucifer and all others to far greater upheaval as a dual focus on creature and creator standards became adopted by all. Had he shelved dependence on hla to depend on a heroic self-driven diligence that he would be obliged to maintain on an eternal scale, he could not long have forestalled disaster; for the ever-growing, dead-weight burden of that defense would prove to be too cumbersome, even for the Light Bearer. When things are conditional, the imbalances of duality develop and worsen.

Had a culpable Lucifer relied upon a narrow, legalistic standard, holding to it by the force of will, the feat would have ended badly because of the magnetism generated by the dual focus. The incessant attraction and repulsion of ever-growing contingencies within a strict regimen of rigid perfection maintained by willpower and competence would have scrambled Lucifer’s loyalties and his mind. By the time he was confronted with error, the smidgen of iniquity with which his troubles began would have ballooned into an unwieldy mass of complications, wreaking havoc within all his ways.