As Darkness Closes In: Fix Your Eyes Upon the Light of the World

Temptation increasingly abounds to be enrapt with the world's schemes and narratives--selfishness all the more exalted under a guise of righteousness. Death is increasingly a fixation, blatant--anything to avert, just anything to preserve self and those things which self wants. This, as though we have control of life and death. I can tell you from personal experience that even suicide attempts aren't successful unless the Lord allows. Which is not something to be taken lightly. Period. 

I wouldn't generally speak so flagrantly about such wretchedness, but in the noxious cacophony which is standard fare for discourse these days, such searing has occurred that little bears weight. 

Speaking plainly, though prayerfully, is what's seemed best. 

He gives wisdom for each instance, however. 

But if you're here, online, I fear that you may be consumed with much of the current mania, also. 

Cleanse the Temple

Implications regarding the cleansing of the temple:

What other portrait of our Lord, Jesus, so rattles the mind as the panorama of His assault upon the temple merchants? Humility, servitude, and a manner of restraint from all but the necessary (even if as according to divine, not human, precepts...) characterize so much of what we see recorded of His ways among us. Like a lamb led to slaughter, even, as Isaiah foretold--horrific though the thought, but still...apt.

So, to have witness of such a bold and unexpected show of indignation...

...all the more known, then, as ruled by passions unfathomable to those even nearest Him.

The care with which He constructed the tool, though, doesn't give indication of impulsivity. Nor of any lack of restraint. Meticulous. Diligently prepared. Mayhap reluctantly undertaken, but nonetheless a necessary statement, violent though it might have seemed to those taken wholly unawares. 

I wonder if He seemed a madman, raging, to them. I can't help but think that the terror which struck those who even saw Him approaching was like enough to completely shock their minds into utter silence, cowed and trembling, only to flee the wrath evident. 

To the One above all others:

He is so good. So faithful.

Periodically, thought returns to His gentle leading--so tender, even in the midst of dire confusions. And perhaps He smiles softly while so patiently guiding back unto and further along His Way: Bringing back to Himself, is all. Ever as to see Him more clearly, experience His love more dearly. Bask in the radiance of His munificence and grace, even ever more humbly bound by the precious weight of His majesty.

There is something so vastly humbling about His love and the tenderness with which He guides and directs. Even or perhaps especially given how absolutely atrocious it is that we should ever look away from His wondrous mercy--distracted by the tarnished, false hopes the world proffers. Then, yet He perhaps sorrowfully sighs, before reaching again and again for our hand--mayhap even gently resting His own upon our shoulder. Nearly undetectable, except for the burning of one's heart, in so experiencing His glorious attention.