Nightmare of Nations: Hunters of Men
Running, falling down, stumbling every time I try to get back up. I can see dimly the attacker...approaching, I have no place to go. My heart is going to beat so hard my chest will split open. Why can't I wake up...I know I am in a nightmare but can't snap out of this sleep prison. I look and see my attacker has a face; No...it is a face that was wrapped in a flag and kissing babies...the face changed to greed and power as it got closer to my place of frozen ineffectiveness. It threw my Bible from the school window. It told me it knew better for me and my family how to live. It was the face many trusted to lead. It is only a face, detached from a body with a pulse or even a heart...directionless yet powerful...the flag fell to the ground, the raw evil exposed.
I am fully awake.
It seems going to sleep after watching the dreary, morbid, violent, senseless news of our nation, of the world...does NOT bring the peaceful sleep that should be a refueling station, a peaceful place, a rest stop.
As I regroup and remind myself it was ONLY a dream...yet...I then have to remember the truth...it IS not a dream.
My mother's heart is broken. My sister's heart is weak. My daughter's heart is beating faster hoping the Father will come rescue us all; Every family, every home, every community, every culture, every school, every church, every life...Every tongue, every nation.
What can I do? The helpless plight of an onlooker...I am trapped in a country being led so contrary to my values, my hopes, my desires for humankind.
People are bleeding in the streets...our streets, Oklahoma's streets, Texas streets, Egypt's streets, Syria's streets, Israel's streets. Streets paved with selfishness, bordem, jealousy, entitlement, anger, greed, power, hate; tumbled with bones and flesh of the innocent (and even not so innocent) mixed with oil, gold, silver, into a weakened sub-standard asphalt.
WE are called the blue planet...yet I fear the picture from the satellite will show it best described one day soon as the “envy green” planet or “blood red” planet!
Mothers weep, fathers have run away, children fear, brothers kill brothers. Yet, the stories are now so common no longer as shocking, that they are run on page 6 or on the last segment of the news. Headlines focus on why the latest high priced primadonna athlete is currently trying to post bail or which celebrity just got out of rehab and wrote a book about their tough little childhood and our leaders are more present on twitter feeds and late night television than present for the vote on the latest house bill to save lives!
I do have hope, a future hope that is secure. No doubts in my place of courage locked under the key of faith in Christ. I know that one day all this evil, all this greed, all this bloodshed because of the narcissistic culture of NOW will forever be put in a bottomless pit. I can only see it in my slight moments of clear...the peace of a smile of a baby, the hug from my hero my husband my love, the sun rising even after the nightmare ends, the encouraging words of dear friends, the truth I find in the promises of YES in scripture.
DO YOU have this place of courage? Do you have a hope and a future?
But for now...We pray.
We pray God in HIS wisdom can help us get through the nightmare.
We pray people will turn, seek HIS face, ask for forgiveness of the “Me”, the “Mine”, the “Money”, the “Mean”. We pray for chances of difference, chances of service, chances of love, chances not left to chance but left to our decision to change...ACTUAL change in direction (TO REPENT, to turn).
I know my Redeemer lives, but do others know it because of the choices I make, the words I speak, the actions I take, the footprints of love left gently behind as I leave my home, work, school?
I know I must sleep tonight. I pray my dream would no longer be that of a nightmare but would be...
For, "In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay."
Even so, come Lord Jesus.
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K. Lonsinger
PEACE
