This world is going mad. It’s getting to the point where it’s impossible to keep track of all the catastrophes. Seems like there’s a new one every week. Just within the last couple months…all these hurricanes…pretty soon they’re going to run out of lettersfor the season and they'll have to start going with numbers... like Sally the 1st 2nd and 3rd or something. (Actually I heard the plan is to start using theGreek alphabet next.) And now Pakistan just got hit by a monster quake. 30,000 dead or something insane like that. And I heard there’s another hurricane headed for Africa. Come to think of it, the last few years have been out of control. I kinda get the feeling the Good Lord’s trying to tell us something. Seems like He’s stepping away from this world and all nature is crying out in protest…raising cane…literally. Not to mention the southern migration of society and politics and world economy and the papacy and global relations. Everything seems to be on its head…yet it also seems to move deliberately…with deadly purpose. As if Darius is preparing for Thermopylae, Napolean for Waterloo, or Hitler for D-day. Like every other tyrant, Satan is going to cause as much bloodshed as he can before he goes down. And I really don’t think it can be very long now. What frustrates me is how easily I get distracted…focused on the daily routine, stuck in the old ruts of thought, wearing them deeper through word and action. I’m like a serf, so busy making furrows for my cabbages that I’m in danger of missing the greatest battle of my time. The epic conflict that will change the face of the kingdom. When I look back on the day I’m hard pressed to see one brick laid in the castle’s wall, one pike forged in the smithy, one ring stitched in my coat of mail. All I see is another row of cabbage heads in a field soon to be swept with the carnage of battle…the ground strewn with other heads….those of the unprepared. Fools like me who didn’t seize the day, but were instead seized by it and dashed to pieces. May my good Captain save me! He is a mighty Hero, praise be! But if I don’t cooperate with Him…if I ignore the bugle and the throbbing war drums…if I don’t rush to fight under His standard, I am lost! It’s just so easy to lose sight of the little things I should be doing every day…to forget to grind today’s wheat in preparation for tomorrow’s siege. God’s been helping me with that one as of late, and I’m thankful, but there is more to war than eating, important as that is. We need recruits! We need warriors. Valiant mighty men who can fight, not cowards who merely wear the uniform and run after the first shot is fired. I just want to get in on the action! Get on my horse and ride! “The board is set. The pieces are moving.” Time to beat the old plowshares into swords. Time to lose the things that weigh down my mind…to no longer fear death…to self, or even to this mortal body. For to the true Christian, what is death? It is put a portal through which we will pass into the halls of glory…to join the mighty men of old. The great and noble men who fought with giants. But most of all our Captain and King Jesus Christ. And we will all sit down together in His victory. Living in a better dream than ever I had, and from which I will never have to awake. Why am I always so afraid of what I might lose here? What is there here? Ah yes, the people to be sure…they should be my only concern. Get them in the Keep and DEFEND in God’s name. Because as I look at this world it seems as though it can’t be long before all hell breaks loose.  ¶ 8:25 PM