2024-06-24 A Meditation on Last Days

“3 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” (2 Tim 3:1-5 ESV)

It’s very holy what happens in the last days, is we see wild wrongs done, insane obsessions arrived at, “Just give us the child” hunt (a la Herod and the baby Jesus). We also see an inspiring call for all present, to think on the more low key subsistence, sustaining of each other a la Readiness, Wisdom, Preparedness, a New Leaf of Love turned over.

Yes, we have acted in haste. Yes, all of us can do with some loving Call to confess. Perhaps we can arrive at said confession in our prayer closets, our rooms decked out simply with the facts of life, the memories and histories cultivated, arrived at, and preserved. Like we preserve a friendly memory or a parental bit of advice, a teacher’s congratulatory direction forward. We preserve… that we might be those utterly Generous, of Untold Giving Nature, who Believe enough shall be provided for, if only we will without measure Give… to the culprits, to the naysayers, to the obsessives and the narcissists.

All this with Christ’s wounds Real on our bodies, but also desiccated, dried and of milder pain. The wounds smart, by way of reminding us of a Servant Role, God our servant-master, we no drafted slaves but willingly asking for All Things to be surrendered unto Him. While there is love in the air; before the rafters slam down all around; while there is Some Avenue left open for a penitent, for a One who simply hasn’t had her or his Confession of Sin, Mea Culpa, quite heard enough.