Certain as the Sunrise

Disney semi-recently released a cartoon movie called Onward. I watched it, and while it wasn't my favorite for a few reasons, there was one really intriguing scene in it where these two brothers come to the edge of a bottomless and wide canyon, and they MUST cross it to complete their mission.

I don't remember the scene explicitly as it's been a while since I watched it, but I do remember this: Older Brother ties a rope around Younger Brother's waist and tells him to say the magic spell to show the invisible bridge for Younger Brother to walk across. Once he says the spell, all he has to do is step out over nothingness to get to the other side, and supposedly, the rope is a safety measure that will keep him from falling if the magic spell doesn't work.

So Younger Brother gathers up his courage and tells Older Brother to make sure the safety line is intact. He steps out. It's really scary. He can't see anything beneath his feet; he can only keep walking on air toward the other side. Older Brother yells after him: "Believe with every step!"

It's a long way, and Older Brother, watching from the side, gulps with horror as the rope he'd tied around Younger Brother comes loose, and Younger Brother stands in the middle of the air with nothing at all as a safety network. Older Brother also knows that if he calls Younger Brother's attention to it, he'll lose faith in the invisible bridge and consequently fall. Everything depends on Younger Brother's faith in the invisible bridge.

Older Brother holds his breath. Younger Brother still steps forward bit by bit. Of course, right before he reaches the other side, he realizes his rope is no longer attached, that he's standing on thin air, and he starts to fall, but since it's Disney-of-the-mostly-happy-endings, he catches himself on the far ledge before he can plunge downward.

I started out this morning praying for absolute trust to take us through the absolute night. It's dark out there, y'all; it's hard to see forward to the next step. There are lots of stormy clouds furling around us. "Believe with EVERY step." Not just the first step, not just the second. Believe until we arrive home. Believe until the light pierces the darkness. Believe until perfection comes and the imperfect disappears (1 Corinthians 13:10).

The Lord led me to Malachi 3:17-18: "'They [the ones who fear and worship the Lord] will be mine,' says the Lord Almighty, 'in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.'"

There was quite a marked distinction, a dividing line today in my prayer time between the elect and the non-elect, the sheep and the goats, the church and the world. As I read passages from Isaiah and other places, the Lord kept stressing, not in these exact words: "Get in or get out. The time is near. The game is winding down. The buzzer is going to sound. Urgency." Make no mistake, God wants everyone to come to repentance, but there will be those who choose, willfully, to keep to their own course. And sadly, the end is the end. There will be no post-script. No Disney-happy-endings-for-all.

This weekend has felt very significant to me, and I've been praying about the SCOTUS nomination and the leadership in our country quite a bit. First, consider the source: this is from someone who has fallen asleep in Government and Economics class and drooled all over her notes. This is from someone who has made it a point to rarely if ever make any political note or comment on Facebook or social media, not even to "like" political posts. This is from someone who just generally dislikes even thinking about politics. And yet, the Lord has been strongly leading me to pray over the nation's leadership. So you know it must be serious if He's calling me to do that.

As I was praying, the Lord gave me a strong message that underlined what I was praying about above:  trust in the darkness. It was, per usual, in the form of a vivid picture. There were cliffs on the edge of a crashing ocean, and it was night and black and stormy, and the only source of light was a lighthouse. The ocean body was far below the lighthouse that stood on the cliff, but the sea spray and waves crashed way up on the cliffs and drenched the lighthouse. Still, the flame didn't waver, and the lighthouse was solid and sure on those cliffs.

In the east, the light of dawn began to rise, and in that light, I could see the ships, many of them, tossed in the sea. I could see close up: each ship had a captain. Many of the ships' captains saw the lighthouse and the rising light of dawn and were glad, because they could steer their ships safely past the deadly reefs. But also, many captains stood at their helms, barking orders to their crew, and weirdly... were blindfolded. I wanted them to take off their blindfolds; it made complete sense that they needed to see to steer their ship... but they wouldn't. They ignored me, sailing forward, regardless of light or reef.

The light kept rising. It was hidden at first behind the thick storm clouds, but as I watched, the sun burst with blinding brilliance through the storm, and the darkness fled away. In the picture, it was the climax of everything, the ultimate pinnacle end, the overwhelming radiance.

So, in my interpretation of this: the lighthouse was the church. Rooted, steady, burning with light through the spiritual warfare we're enduring. Through the shaking. Through the waves that threaten our foundation.

The ships were those who were lost, who don't know Jesus, who haven't yet accepted Him as Savior. Some did see. Others... stubbornly did not, stubbornly would not (insistence on keeping their blindfolds in place). Malachi 3:14 says: "You have said, 'It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out His requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty?'"

The rising sun, I believe, is Jesus' return, and as I prayed and watched, the Lord told me: "My return is as certain as the sun rising in the east, as certain as the turning of the world, as certain as it has always been from the beginning of creation until the end. I am coming." The King of kings is coming! We can be certain of it!

In John 18:33, Pilate asked Jesus: "Are you the king of the Jews?"

Jesus answered: "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

Pilate double-checked: "You are a king, then."

Jesus said: "You are right in saying I am a King. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

"What is truth?" Pilate asked

What a rhetorical question to end that exchange with. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." What is Truth? Jesus is the Truth. No blindfold in the world will keep us from that fact. No denial, no declaring that God is a fable or a phantom or a myth or anything else. In the end, the sun will rise, as certainly as it has since the beginning of creation, and everything will be refined in the wake of His glorious Truth. All things will be made perfect, and the imperfect will be burned away.

Jesus is coming!

It's so easy to doubt in the night when it's dark, or when we can't see the ground beneath our feet. When it feels like we're walking over nothing with nothing to hold us up. Chris Pratt's character in Onward shouts to Tom Holland's character: "Believe with every step." The night is ending soon, the sun is rising, the Son is rising!!


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