The Fields are Bountiful

My first notice was in my convictions, as it should be. The Lord moved me to get treatment for my left knee pain. It takes time for human government bureaucracy to move, so it was a waiting game. I was going to need more use of that knee. I had all these thrilling visions of doing stuff that I have always loved to do — driving out to remote areas of Oklahoma, maybe hiking some, riding my bike more, etc. The vision half of that was all me; it was my personal manifestation of hope. The hope part was from God, but how I interpreted that was just a matter of my own wishes.

It’s not that God isn’t going to let me do those things, but they weren’t the primary reason for a push to get into better shape. The need to restore some of the fitness I’ve had in the past was based on something much bigger than my personal motivations. At the time, I wasn’t aware of that, but it got me on the path God required.

Now I’m starting to see stuff that gives those urges a better definition. It’s not like I can list a bunch of stories with links for intellectual proof, but I’m sensing that the moral tensions in the world are rising dramatically. The demons were set loose some time ago, and their deeds of darkness are starting to bear fruit.

People are going nuts, committing bizarre acts of violence. Political figures are making the most egregious, outrageous demands. People everywhere are abusing what little authority they might hold to make others miserable. None of this is particularly new, but the scale of it is what draws my attention.

Now is the time to get ready, specifically in terms of being ready for physical stresses. To be honest, I really doubt I’ll see very much physical action for a while yet, but there’s a powerful sense of need to engage that old tactical awareness, and as much physical capacity as I can build up for something yet unseen. There’s going to be a lot of work to do, and it will happen under very sub-optimal conditions. I need to be ready to respond regardless of the context.

It’s easy to let things drift, to start feeling old and tired. When the flesh fails, it bleeds over into everything else. As Paul noted, I need to shed the excess weight and lethargy so I can run the race course set before me. I may be retired by official US government reckoning, but there will be no retirement from the mission God gave me. It’s just getting wound up. I need the physical resources to stand and deliver the Word at any moment. This can’t be done on autopilot.

So I’m working out six days per week. I’ve folded my physical therapy exercises into my routine. I won’t tell you that my knees don’t hurt, but that it’s now manageable. I can push to higher limits in order to harvest a stronger response from my aging body. Everything I do is aimed at supporting the need to respond to moral crisis, to be ready to breathe life into the Scripture so that it grabs people.

I suspect a good many of you have similar urges. I sincerely hope so. There aren’t many of us right now, and the harvest will be massive.