Does anxiety confuse your thoughts regarding the end-time? Remember this.
“We’re living in the last days!” They said it, and they’ve been saying for years it seems.
“They” is every deacon, elder, church mom, pastor and saved Christian since I was born. I’ve the heard term “last days” for years. I’ve also been to enough church seminars to know the world is in terrible shape and that something needs to happen or humanity will inevitably destroy itself.
The Believer’s Bucket List
Yet, as I grew up, those prophetic cries were drowned out by my own desires to graduate, get married, have kids and make a bucket-list trip back to the motherland of Africa before the skies parted and trumpets blared. Now as an adult, despite my earthly acquisitions, I find those prophetic cries tugging at my thoughts with consistent urgency.
What was once “end of time prophesy” has become now a daily reality. Don’t believe me? Just turn on the news. Early one Wednesday morning, I woke up to the news of 20 year old Stephon Clark, an African American male, shot 20 times in his grandmother’s backyard after police confused his cell phone for a gun.
News and Neurosis
As a mother of a young son myself, sorrow filled my heart. I am not alone in my weariness of the world’s chaos. Civil unrest brews like a pot of boiling water left on the stove too long as minority communities process yet another incident of social injustice at the hands of police and frustrated youth protest in the streets.
If I’m honest, fear knocks at the door of my conscious with each breaking news story. “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains… Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,” Matthew 24:6-12 NIV.
How is it that a book written thousands of years ago could so accurately portray the current state of our world? Well, scripture says in Matthew 24:33 ESV “So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates.” Therefore instead of being afraid of the idea that Jesus really is coming back or pushing it away, we can live in anticipation of eternal relief.
Skip to the End
The blessing in knowing prophesy is that we already know how the story ends, even if it seems like the bad guy is winning. I don’t have to live in trepidation because tumultuous times won’t last forever.
Thankfully, the same wisdom that persistently reminded me of the soon coming of Jesus, also equipped me with promises to answer the door when fear comes knocking. John 16:33 reminds me, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
So, are you struggling to make ends meet? Lost a friend to cancer? Know that there is room in your heart for hope! Justice is coming because Jesus is coming! One day soon, the hurricanes, wild fires, mass shootings, and grief-filled tears shed for loved ones lost to disease will be done away with.
As a child of God and believer in Jesus, I can trust that all the chaos we see in the world is Earth’s final declaration of a soon coming Savior. Maybe you’ve been looking at the news and you are filled with fear, or anger, frustration, worry about how the chaos is affecting you’re family? Maybe you’re not sure how the whole prophetic story ends- let me tell you- we win.
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