the pace now quickens

Choose my instruction instead of silver,
knowledge rather than choice gold…
Provers 8:10

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
1 Timothy 1:7

(St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

Anxious, hurried and apprehensive they race along with nervous urgency
as the pace to the journey suddenly quickens.
The moment has drawn nigh and there is no more time to tarry.
The waiting and watching is over.
The benign prosaic observation is no longer available for causal inspection–
As the air is now heavy with the seriousness of what is soon to take place.

The collision of two opposing forces is eminent.
They had seen it foretold in the star.
Only a few will truly understand the overwhelming magnitude of what is to transpire…
For gravity is laced within the expectation.
Two cosmic energies will collide with such tremendous force that the powerful reverberations will spiral outward, affecting all generations across the chasm of time…

There will be a time for joy to be had…as well as heartfelt offerings, homage and gifts.
The time for merrymaking will be at hand as the celebration and toasting will commence.
Yet the excited announcement of these glad tidings brings with it both joy and heavy consequence…

There will be a time of thankfulness, reverence and tenderness
as Hopefulness joyously arrives.
All the while as radiant Light fiercely pierces the blackened veil.
Yet there will also be lingering repercussions for each and everyone,
as the Prince of Darkness will no longer rest,
not while the baby slumbers sweetly unaware.

So hurry on we all must go with urgency in each and every step.
We travel far and wide this day in haste to meet a King.
Yet with this yearly marking of such a grand and festive event,
as mankind is blindly busy making merry within the merriment,
young and old are naively unaware that Time is almost spent.

So sing your glad tidings this grand and hopeful December day…
hurry your way to the manger bare laying down your peace and praise,
for unto you is born this day a child, a Savior and a King
Yet mindful we must all remain…
for there is one who chooses curses rather than to sing

For he waits in the shadows knowing his time is drawing nigh…
as he plots and he schemes for a “A voice was heard in Ramah
of painful crying and deep sadness:
Rachel crying for her children.
She refused to be comforted,
because her children are dead.”
Jeremiah 31:15

For within the innocence of our heartfelt joy lies a fight for every soul…
as the pace for Mankind’s salvation has quickened as one is now born to carry our load.

“an angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt, because Herod is starting to look for the child so he can kill him. Stay in Egypt until I tell you to return.”
Matthew 2:13

The watchman has sounded the alarm

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
GK Chesterton

“Lord, I am willing to break MY heart that I might satisfy THY heart.”
Watchman Nee

Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.
Habakkuk 1:5

(a single spiraling stair leads downward at Bunratty Castle / County Clare, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

We are surrounded by an advancing diminishing light as shadows lengthen, growing heavy this very late hour.
The watchman perched high in his tower-stand has seen the ominous signs as the impending maelstrom now fast approaches…
Sounding his alarm, the warning falls flat on deaf ears.

The anxious watchman abandons his tower watch, racing downward from his helpless position. He races to alert the slumbering forces and bar the massive castle gate. Time is of the essence.
Slipping, almost falling down the damp cold worn steps, the watchman descends into the
encroaching vastitude of eternity.
Time no longer is gracious or kind.

Confusion reigns down havoc and chaos on the unsuspecting who now hurry about searching for protection.
“We thought it was all ok…
Everyone was happy…
Wasn’t that the point?”
Tolerance of everything, right?
No wrongs…everything being right…everyone was happy, there were no distinctions.
Everyone had things the way they wanted, what was so wrong with that?

The masses agonizingly lament as the sickening reality of appeasement and indifference comes painfully into focus.

Wailing and anguish join as one.
Yet the watchman alone knows the truth.
Hard choices of both right and wrong have crossed the invisible lines of distinction,
melding as one.
Just as young babies are first taught right from wrong…as the meaning of no, don’t and danger are drilled into their tiny heads, their adult defenders find themselves having forgotten those very meanings…

Somewhere along the way, wrong became ok.
The word sin was wiped from the books.
There was no longer regret as there was no longer a need of a conscious.

The ancient manuscripts, now dusty with disuse, were plain in their position and mandates.
The Word was spoken and the Law of the Creator stood firm.
Yet man became his own god and now the hour is late and shadows have fallen…

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—eternal life.

I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.
1 John 18-27