A Prophecy of Doom! ...And Hope.

I browse around ubiquitous social media and the many news sites scattered around, and I find one prevailing thread amidst all the wanton physical chaos and caustic rhetoric strewn around. It is the rearing ugly head of evil incarnate that is hate, and that it afflicts, and maybe even kills (one is spiritual), more than this COVID 19 pandemic we are facing could ever. In both cases, technology allows the spread of their contagion at faster pace than any time before.

And addressing more on certain powerful people emanating from different strata of society.  It is almost unconscionable to learn what they would go through to publicly lie about or misrepresent what they say and do.  All in the name of hate and the underlying grab for power.  The angry anarchists both in power and on the streets!  Both those nicely dressed and suited and those masked rioters creating mayhem in the streets.

And so rather than being reticent when not being able to say anything good, the reverse becomes the truism.  Not to miss any opportunity to denigrate anybody you loathe, in dogged pursuit of an agenda tightly couched in the quest for power and influence.

The art of language, communication, and conversation has been thrown to the dogs. It has been subtly subverted – to revile people, to mislead people, and yes, to taint the very air we breathe.  And we are all the worse for it.   So how many otherwise gentle people now hate because they have been fed with false narratives?  The developing formless blob has evolved into the mob.  So how different is it now compared to the darkening times of Christ, when otherwise gentle people were transformed into an angry and cruel mob?

God help us. 

If we are believers of biblical accounts, we know that during similar godless times, God was disposed to bring wholesale catastrophe to our lot.  But he did promise with the advent of Christ that He had relented in the use of such extreme measures.

What then can we expect?

The reflex or default act of many has been a loud call to prayer.

But I say that many do pray, but they still miss the essential meaning and power of prayer.

One prays for resolution of vicissitudes because everything is dependent on God.  But the more important part of prayer is to act on those resolutions like everything was dependent on us.  Our salvation then is in us, measured in our actions under the proper guidance of Christ.