Something Amiss

(Continued from I Am Fed)

Yet there was something amiss in the air. An unsettled disappointment settled over me like a cloud. I swung my sword at the sky and, drawing cuts in the air about me, changed directions suddenly with the hope of dissuading any dark spirits hovering about. After a time, I stopped and let the sword rest point down. I leaned on it putting my weight on the handle and stood there. I was unhappy. All the song and dancing and praise and joy expressed had somehow gone away from me.

“What is this, God? Why am I losing what was given to me?” I looked at the sword and sure enough the iridescent colors of the jewels had diminished. They looked like some cheap imitation.

“I don’t understand," I bemoned. "Just awhile back you fed me. You gave me a song and now it's gone. You let me walk in the light of Your Glory and you even sent angels to encourage me. But now in the heat of this day, I stand fed and yet not at peace. I have someone close to me for whom I care greatly. I want the best for this one, but she seems lost. She walks about thinking that the center of everything is her mind and that knowledge is everything. I fear, she’s caught up in the war of vanity. Lord, what can I do from where I stand? My sword is ineffective in reaching her world. The battle for her life is not here, but over there.” I pointed to the west with my plea.

I was very sad and quite earnest in my appeal to God. “Why don’t you help me in this? It’s as if they attack her to get at me. Is my praise not enough? Is my lack of joy in this very moment considered...sin?” It was a shocking sudden thought.

Could I be in sin because of my love for someone so close to me? Was I indeed losing faith because I held my thoughts on someone still in the world? I staggered away from the moment of realization. I nearly threw the sword away thinking it must be useless, and that if it was useful, I wasn’t worthy to carry it.

I realized my folly, “O God, forgive me. Can we not pray for those we love with the same faith and joy you’ve given me here? To think I've fallen away out of love for someone, how wrong of me. I want her to wake up. I want her to awaken to the truth, to find her way to the edge where she can see what you have waiting. I don't want her to be lost."

I walked westward dragging the sword in the dust. My head hung low on my shoulders as I watched the ground with aimless walk. Eventually I came to an outcropping some distance from the abyss. At the top of it, I was high enough to see back into the world from which I'd come.

I could see the turmoil and the chaos. I could see the fighting and the wars. I could see the hungry and the starving. I could see injustice and filth. I saw vice and sickness and all the bad things I had ever known. I took a breath of despair and let it out with the huff of disappointment. “Look at them, Lord. Look at the world from which I’ve come. It is full of lost people who have no idea who You are. What does my joy matter if they have no knowledge of You? When are you returning? Can’t you come now, Lord? Can’t you at least send someone to help her? Can’t you send your warring angels to fight on her behalf. She is caught in the grapple of a powerful spirit. I can’t help her from here! I’m asking You O God of Creation, to come down out of heaven with Your Command and rescue this girl.” I fell down on my knees. Tears welled up in my eyes.

The sword lay parallel to the ground, loose in my hand.

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