Ziklag 3.22

it is rarely easy

SOS Discipline - Daily Proverb and Red Letter Reader

Praise effects greater change than wrath. cf Pr. 28:12

No matter who you are, there is only one god, and He is either the real one, or money. cf Mt. 6:35C

Know what you fight against. Know what you fight for. cf Sun Tzu 3.31

From Today’s Stack:

Talk Them In Reboot

Nobody Wins More Souls By Trying Harder

Repentance is simple. But it is rarely easy.

It is more like a muscle than a decision. It is a reflex that isn’t inside of human beings by nature. With discipline, with training and exercise, even the most anemic muscle can get the blood flowing again. So with the human soul, it is discipleship, teaching and returning to it that sharpens the iron of the mind and opens the path to wisdom.

This is why more conversions do not result form simply adding more zeal. Earnestness, authenticity and jealousy for truth are all good things, but the wrong kind of zealot makes converts for his enemies.

No conversion is a race, and any conversation about an agenda is no conversation at all. Slow turns out to be pretty smooth, and smooth ends up plenty fast enough for the things that matter most. Words travel one mind at a time.

Let you common sense be evident to all and fear no man as you come in the name of your King. In everything, by whisper and groan, pray for those who are dying without hope. With thanksgiving in your heart for Jesus, beg for the souls of your countrymen, your children, and the age.

The peace, which God alone declares, shall guard your heart in Christ Jesus’ promises, bold as water, thick as blood. For whatever is noble, whatever is true, whatever is just and pure, lovely and of good report, if there is any virtue worthy of man’s praise, meditate on this, and watch the bridge of conversation open up to avenues you never expected to take when talking to the opponents to the Gospel.

and then, from that same other thing from yesterday and forever ago…

Click.

The light was on again.

But how did he get past me? And so far ahead? The torch swung around some twenty-five paces down the dust-laden corridor, its beams shimmering among the many disturbed particles that now danced like snow hovering in some fairy tale.

It was the last thing I expected. Not a mine, but a true hallway. Like something from the old apartments in the ‘scrapes. Only nicer. Tile or veneer or something made for people with shoes too nice to spend much time in a mine. It reminded me of a lab or part of a hospital.

For the first time, I could see the outline of my captor. Thin and lanky, he walked with a slight crouch. Was that a tail? But before I got too much of a look, he stepped left through what had to be a break in the hallway and the light went with him.

The sound rustling pant legs muffled my footsteps and matched my quick breathing as I sprinted the distance.

He was waiting for me as I reached the corner, another fifty paces or more down, but standing still and motioning with the light. It didn’t last long. Within an instant he was gone again, this time to his right.

Running in pitch darkness even worst than its cracked up to be. Even if you know there is nothing there to run into, it always feel like you’re just about to hit. Have you ever tried to walk straight while blindfolded? My hands were first out in front of me, then to my sides like a wingspan, fingertips hungering for the wall to deftly guide me as the adrenaline mounting in my body began to take over again. Everything felt twisted, like the whole world folding on an axis.

Around the corner, there he was. Waiting, the light shining right into my eyes. My mind flared, white, hot searing pain forcing me to look away. When I opened them again, still squinting and with my hands up for defense, I again noticed the unique build of the walls. Smooth. Metal, lined with equipment and other instruments. Expensive. Ancient.

“Here,” he said. “Through this.”

The beam, reflecting off the glass pane of a door window, now flooded over both of us in an instantaneous flash. There, that moment, I saw him. It was only a glimpse, but I will never forget.

Whatever he was, he wasn’t human. For a moment I thought he might be a feral. But no, not only do ferals not talk, but a feral attacks and kills on sight without thought or remorse. Ferals used to be human. This thing had never been human.

It’s forehead was set back on a slope. Angled ears rose along the scalp. His snout was long, drawn forward. All of him was covered with short fur, except his face where some of it grew long, like an unkempt beard that hung mostly from his cheeks, mustache and chin. He was dressed in rags. And his eyes…. His eyes were slits for pupils.

An animal. He was an animal.

“Go in,” he said, stepping back into the dark hall behind us and pointing the beam just past my eyes.

“Who are you?” I asked, at this point no longer wanting to see more.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. And you are almost out of time.”

I was cast down. Paralyzed. I could not believe.

“Go through the door,” he said. “Or die.”

I put my hand to the lever and pulled. The latch and the swing of the door was smooth, greased to perfection. Dust hung new disturbed in the air all around me, falling like light snow drops in the night. As for my return to dust, that was going to have to wait.

It was a bunk room. There were metal desks to match the bed frames and a filing cabinet in the corner against the far wall. Somehow, I had expected something more imaginative, a secret lab or a powerful vault filled with mystery.

The only mystery here was how long it had been since the three bodies fell asleep in their cots and never woke up again, and, perhaps, how they all died as one.

They were little more than skull and bones now, hands folded, endless, empty stares wide and eerie. It all smelled musty and dry. I approached the bed nearest me. There didn’t look to be any noticeable difference. But it was then that I noticed the next one clutching something tightly. As I drew near, I saw it was a lone, tattered, leather-bound volume.

A book?

Far more disturbing was the skull of the beast which held it in its clawed, bony fingers. I gaped in horror at the sloped forehead and snout, but forced my mind back to where I was, to who was behind me, to how I saw at all by that light bouncing off the ceiling and onto this place of sanctuary.

No sooner did I touch the book to lift it than there was a could-have-seen-it-coming click followed by my old friend, darkness.