The snow crunches under our feet so loudly that we'd startle a dead man if we happened upon him. Onward ho we go, as we're not alone out here. There is a cacophony of crunches, sounding like a poorly rehearsed drum and bugle corps from which only the drummers are playing.
We don't know what distance remains until this journey ends, but we do know that there are more miles behind us than ahead. We are getting close and the signs are all around indicating the nearness of the destination. If you deny that you are out here on the path with me, you had better check your pulse because you may be the dead one about to be startled. If you say "that's your crazy journey and I don't need to go on it" then you are indeed dead where you stand fast in hesitation. Immediately after you say "I'm comfortable right where I am, thank you" a creeping, niggling disquiet will start to crawl through your mind and soul and with that comes second-guessing and conflicted wondering.
You can still run and catch up. We'd love to have you walk with us. We'd like to take you home with us, we'd love to take you home, but we are not Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. We are hiking home, guided by God's Positioning System. But, we can't stop and wait for you, as time simply does not afford us that luxury.
"No turns ahead" speaks the voice of our GPS. At times, it feels like we are floating. It is then that we know that we are being carried until our strength returns. We are guided and driven, escaping the wrath that is to come. There is a choice: you can laugh and scoff at us and consider us to be teetering on the lunatic fringe, or, you can start wayfaring with us, enduring the remaining potholes in the road that ends at Paradise. Indeed, we'd love to take you home.
We are keeping Christ's command to persevere, and He will spare us the hour of trial which will come upon the whole world, testing those who remain on the earth. We are walking westward and not currently floating, our snow crunching rhythm section is now harmonized by the rumble of a CSX freight train rolling not to far away to the north. The engineer blasts the air horn as the twin diesel lash-up of AC44CW's pulls its long string of graffiti-covered box and hopper cars toward a grade crossing, and that horn sounds through the cold night air like the shofar from the heavens that we expect to hear imminently. This imminence fuels a sense of urgency for these times, and that is why we ask you to please walk along with us.
We can see ahead and comprehend; however we walk by faith and not by sight. We are pieces of a puzzle being snapped together. We are willing pieces being maneuvered on the chess board of eternity -- more like the Knights and less like the Pawns, but we serve the King. The King knows how to bring about checkmate, and He moves all of the various pieces around the board in a brilliant strategy that we human novices cannot conceive.
Home is calling us onward. Our legs hurt but we press on, and when we are too tired to walk Jesus carries us. When we are fit to walk again He leads us. It is His Holy Spirit that drives us. It is His eternity that beckons us. Pressing onward...pressing forward.
Are you ready to journey with us?
In Christ's Service,
Jim
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