Anytime soon

February 9, 2006

Joel Akin

I like to start things with time. Time is like a friend who consistently meets you each day at the same time. He never fails to show up and never fails to follow you. There are those who say time is like death but I would say they are wrong. Time is more like the best friend a man has. We look at time and time says "You can count on me. I'll be there for you." And it is so.

Time once said of himself that if there were a place filled with joy that he would share it for all time and all places and all peoples. But time as we know it is just a thing. An idea, an conception, a dream which carries us forward into the great unknown called the future. And there we look with uneven eyes.

 In a letter I received recently someone suggested that I saw only disaster and they pitied me for I had grown blind to the beauty around me. I thought about answering back with an angry reply but instead I thought about it and realized it was like two men who walked down a road. Both were surrounded by beauty and perhaps both saw it. One saw it for himself but the other man cried to the Lord and thanked him. And for some strange reason the Lord told the man that the beauty was temporary for there was coming a great storm on the horizon so great that all of it would be erased. Now I know that sounds like a cruel thing for God to say so I have spent the last 8 years praying about this response and asking God the question "Am I crazy? Have I lost sight of the beauty only to focus on the darkness? After all that person was right in one way. I do see the dark times coming and coming still. I would like to say they won't but the signs are still there. The storms still come. The trials still hit. People still are cruel. And that is the hard thing to answer to because I know that time is short for us to work for on the horizon I still see that darkness. And there are those who find it hard to understand why I do. Why I can't let go. Why I still try to prepare myself spiritually and emotionally for the days of sorrow that I see coming. If only there were someway to wake them from their sleep before it is too late.

It is like all of us have died and we lay down wherever we fell and we could not understand the shouts of those who loved us and cried unto us "Awake thou that sleepest..."

And yet if I see darkness and sorrows and trials coming upon the earth would it not be my responsibility to prepare? Would it not be the calling God has given me? Even if I prayed for a thousand years would it change the stubbornness of mans own heart? So that even he would laugh and mock and challenge? What will it take for the man who sits back claiming to see the beauty but ignoring the voice of He who is and was and will be? The one who set time in its place that I might see the intricacy of it? Is there anyone greater then God? Anyone mightier then He who speaks to us in the whispers of the night and shares with us the deep things that man cannot see or hear or understand? I find myself wondering if we have challenged God thinking that we might somehow defeat Him with our wisdom and understanding. "It can't be" we claim. We have prayed and we have cried and we have done all that we can do. But in reality we have lived our lives fighting wars and working works and dealing deals not directed by God but called only to challenge men or fight wars or work deals. A repeating of souls and minds and thoughts but not truly the present will of God.

I cannot lay blame on those of us who see the beauty but cannot see the future. We look through dark glasses at what comes and we wonder in our hearts if perhaps we failed in the path. But I have learned a lesson along the journey that I cannot ever forget. That in the passage of life there is a voice. A voice that speaks like the whisper of the wind that passes in the night. It speaks to those who have ears to hear and to those who listen with ears open. There are many voices that would control us and many voices that who linger to block Gods voice. But He is still there and He has not changed and He has not forgotten.

 For from the midst of the south shall arise a new song and a new song shall break forth in joy. And the joy of the Lord shall spring up from the dirt and from the dirt shall arise a new joy that shall heal the land that was broken. There will be a turning of life so that life cannot be held in bondage by the darkness that lingers. There shall be a turning of dawn and a turning of time and a turning of death so that the life of the Lord shall renew all things and from the earth shall spring up a light called the light of hope. And hope shall arise from the earth and shall arise from the heart of the earth so all men shall see her. And hope shall arise from the earth so all men might rejoice in the Lord. There shall be a hope for men and women and children and the light of His salvation shall fly upon the joining of the stars and the light of the stars shall be restored to their wonder and the Glory of the Lord shall cover the light of the earth. The earth shall be restored and the restoration of the earth shall commence with the coming of the Lord. The Lord shall return with a shout and the shout of the Lord shall commence with the breaking of time and death shall be no more. For we who are alive and remain shall be caught up to be with the Lord for the Lord says there is coming a moment to rejoice in for the timing of His coming is soon.