I have taken up walking after dinner, largely for my health. A side bonus is the solitude of no screaming children, no demands on my time, no deadlines─just me and my thoughts and God.
I have been working on bringing my relationship with Christ closer through a stronger prayer life. It has been one of my “struggle points” for many years. I try to pray before bed each night for those on a list, which I keep on my phone. But there are nights I might fall asleep mid-prayer or may not even make it that far.
Tonight, on my walk, I turned my eyes skyward and started to pray for some kind of direction in what to do/expect next in the “grand scheme” of things. Well, the sky didn’t roll back with masses of angels descending on me bearing the answer on a golden scroll, but I did feel the touch of God on my heart. Do you recall 2 Timothy 3:5, where he talks about people in the end “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof?”
I was thinking over the heavy presence of evil in our day, and how it just seems to compound daily. It is something that had been weighing very heavily on me as we see more and more in the way of all we were told to expect to see in the latter days. All of a sudden though, it was like God was “removing the scales from my eyes” and letting me see it for what it really was in His view─to a point (I am not claiming to know the mind of God). When I saw it with this new perspective, I wanted to laugh. This made me think of the verses in Psalm (2:1-5) where it says:
“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.”
In all my feelings of being downtrodden, overwhelmed and depressed over the abundance of evil, I was letting myself forget just: Whom it is that I serve. My God will hold every one of these elitist, backroom powerbrokers in derision. Their vain work will become nothing. They are merely, again, in the “grand scheme of things,” no more powerful than a bunch of ants fighting over breadcrumbs to be the top ant on the biggest anthill. At any time our God can come in and wipe out their little pile of sand with a swipe of His mighty hand. And their plans are going to no more destroy God’s plans than an ant in my yard is going to thwart any plans of mine.
I know this sounds very much like an obvious statement, but the point is that I was, in a way, letting myself acknowledge the godliness of God, but “denying His power thereof.” He was showing me how to be a warrior for Him with a full reliance on Him─knowing that He is and will be there regardless of the evils and their influence on the world around me. These evil men and women are merely “roaches on their little roach errands” (to quote Stephen King) scattering in pain anytime the light falls on them.
I think, if I can hold onto what I felt tonight, I will be able to face the evils surrounding me with a whole new pair of eyes and perhaps, even become more of the warrior that He has meant for me to be.
Just thought I would share.
— Ryan