(or seeing the full panorama)

“But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”

Daniel 12:4

I’m sure not an intellectual. I know some, and I aint like that at all. No sir… Not even close. I just have sixty-eight years of info-marbles rolling around in my head that are still active. With all that acquisition in there, I’m quieted that I can trust my thought processes for now. At least until senility seeps into my gray matter, or memories become long forgotten in layers of trivia-dust.

I’m also aware of the deeper meaning behind the great chain of human events throughout history. I’m reasonably confident that I see and understand more than ninety percent of liberal, worldly journalists who believe they have all the data we’ll ever need but has to be updated hourly. Their function is to focus on each brief period that any one event unfolds in, then quickly move on to the next one. Or update that last one. They have neither time nor the desire for circumspection or to step back and observe the grand mosaic being pieced together right in front of them. They’re too nearsighted to see it, and frankly, they don’t have the perception to do so if they tried.

It can be difficult, but I try my best not to padlock initial observations or foregone conclusions of history-making events that make their way into tomorrow’s encyclopedias without consulting my loyal comrades, ‘The Guiding Triad’ who are always close by thank goodness. And their names in order of rank are,

1. ‘Biblical Knowledge’ inspired by God and written by His prophets and disciples,
2. ‘Lessons of History’ and
3. ‘Verifiable Science.’

Leaning on these three heroes of civilization rather than my understanding unveils an enlightening panorama before me that says man’s darker machinations on this Earth have an unfortunately high probability of happening despite teaching and warnings—and then repeating over and over with bits of quieter time bridging the events. By our nature, we seem to be unable to avert them successfully. Postponed sometimes, but inevitable because most aberrant social behaviors are burned into us like the bios chip on your computer’s motherboard. And it traces all the way back to the Garden of Eden. And if someone tells you that’s not true, they’re probably one of those journalists I spoke of earlier. Or a relative.

The dark and horrific human events we continue witnessing during our brief time on this planet seldom catch me entirely unsuspecting. Nor do they induce my mind to a state of irrecoverable pandemonium when they occur. My confidence is wholly due to ‘The Guiding Triad.’ They have taught me over decades to take on a more reflective mindset and view world events not as singular instances but as the waters of a flowing river, winding its way toward the end of a long journey.

Assuredly, I lower my head in sorrow and prayer when evils like 911 happen, but I’m able to rally and tell myself not fall to pieces over them because the greatest of ‘The Guiding Triad’ says, “Trust me and stay the course to the end. Then I will call you my child.” While the lesser two say, “Remember, we’ve seen this before and there’s more on the way before it’s over. So dig in and keep your chin up.” Thus, I’m able to make it through man’s continuous despicable doings by trusting these wise counselors.

Jesus explained there would eventually be an end to mans’ destructiveness, but He reminded His disciples that only the Father in Heaven knows when that will be. If Jesus didn’t know, then anyone claiming to know specific events because they did some convoluted math with the calendar and a few misinterpreted verses is either:

1. Trying to sell a book.
2. Are two bricks short of a load.
3. They’re deviously forming a cult and will be seeking emotional believers just anytime now.

Doubtless, they’ll be in a bit of a hurry since their span of opportunity to leave a twisted legacy is so brief. And even more so if they’re planning on drinking the Kool-Aid at the height of their following. The point of this paragraph is, though we can not know specifics, we can still open those eyes and arrive at a rough approximation of our position on the timeline by:

1. A logistic comparison of past to present.
2. How much we’ve advanced scientifically and technologically.
3. The exponentially growing lethal capacity we’ve acquired as compared to rock-throwing eons past, and
4. The continuing loss of knowledge while mans’ hatred increases.

And because we only need to push some buttons for a few minutes to burn and kill all life on the planet, I’d say we’re pretty far along the timeline. Well, maybe in the future, we could get that annihilation time down to just one minute after the buttons are depressed. Gotta love progress.

Each generation is a tiny blip on humanity’s timeline, but we can simultaneously see the past and present. Obtaining the ability to do so allows one to see the River of Life’s rapids ahead, and we know how severe the drop will be by the loudness of its roar. I’ve rafted down actual rapids in my youth, and that’s precisely how it is. The louder the roar, the more treacherous the rapids. The more destructive humanity becomes, the greater the calamity, and the more dangerously close we are to our demise.

The key to understanding the thousands of years of human events still in progress is knowing it’s the Creator’s perfect multi-purpose mechanism to, among several other things:

1. Allow us to learn from past mistakes.
2. Discover how it feels to endure loss.
3. Experience the bad with the good.
4. Pass on God’s word to future generations
5. And essential to God… because unfortunately, great lengths of time are required to populate heaven when there’s only a mere 6-8 percent of people from each generation who actively search for and find Him.

That’s not many of us for every eighty years. And I have a feeling the dimension of heaven is a real expansive area to have to populate. The point is we are the family God was looking for when He created the universe, and to us all this history feels like a slow moving train.

God is outside the universe that came into being with His words, “Let there be light.” Omnipresence enables Him to see the distant end of our ‘do-it-myself’ story, which Jesus hints to as not rosy. And God sees that finale as quick as the lapse between flipping the switch and seeing the light come on. It’s instantaneous because He views it from a timeless standpoint, not as a physical entity imprisoned inside His own cosmos of moving photons of light, to be measured by the ticking clock.

A side-note on the subject of time:

He created it by having the universe continually expand and giving those little white photons crisscrossing through it a traveling speed of 186,000 miles per second. We call that time over here in cow country. It took thousands of years for us to figure that one out. In the meantime, everyone stood around outside, watching boring shadows move across metal discs while waiting for Einstein to finally show up.

God intentionally had the corridors of time prerecorded in an understandable form, written by Christ’s disciples and the prophets hundreds of years before Him, so we can read them today, being prudent not to distort their teachings by taking them out of text. And when we gain the knowledge contained in its pages, we often come to an understanding of what is happening around us as pertains to the long haul of life on this temporal spinning blue satellite. That’s not being a prophet. It’s being wiser and more understanding of our purpose and destiny. We still don’t know the times and dates of anything, and it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s enough to know it will happen.

There is nothing mystical about seeing the unfolding of human events as the assembling of a divine, lengthy, and super-sophisticated plan while you’re here in a physical body. Don’t bother with reading books by people claiming to be today’s prophets. It’s doubtful that there are any prophets around as their work is finished, and these authors are usually eccentric literates twisting individual events into ominous interpretations. There are no precise interpretations for any one occasion, and you can see the lunacy of these writers just by reading the summary on the back jacket cover. I’ve read a few back flaps, and they’re always far fetched and never come close to being accurate in their predictions. If you want the genuine article, which is recommended but not required reading, I suggest you get it from all three of the authoritative Guiding Triad guys.

I don’t give credence to the forecasts of the future from televangelism either. Some of them are the very ones writing those books I just mentioned, and I can tell you they’re completely unnecessary for your salvation. And in the end, most give Christianity a black eye. They primarily attract the elderly, which is fine in itself until they clean out their bank accounts, but they also gather in the ‘sheeple’ who blindly follow their shepherd in huge flocks, backing these men or women no matter the facts, even when they’re blatantly wrong. So if you think you are a sheeple, then by all means, turn the TV on and lose the remote between the couch cushions.

You can discern how the events of yesterday, today, and tomorrow are falling into place for yourself, and be confident and calm while you’re doing it. The most important part of the effort to reach an understanding and insight into the grand path we are on is Bible lessons. Read the books of Daniel’, Ezekiel, and ‘St John’s Revelation,’ and if you actually end up doing that, why don’t you go ahead and read the rest of the book instead of raiding the refrigerator all night. Tell yourself you’re doing it just to be sure you got all the facts straight. It’ll be good for you and put hair on your chest. And a lot of women these days would kill to have some of that. Seriously.

The other two categories of lessons are the history and science ones. According to one’s mental acuity, these are more scholarly and can be challenging to grasp and understand. Mine aren’t so great, but I get the basics. History and science jump all through time and space, so persevere through it for the rewards they deliver. There’s no rush. After all, you have the rest of your life to figure it out. Or at least until they ship you off to the nursing home. You might try skimming over some of the volumes of “World History” by Howard Spodek or the easier ‘Guns Germs and Steel’ by Jared Diamond. If you don’t take a shine to either of these, find an old world history school book from way back in the 60s before history got canceled by the left. Finally, you can at least find some authoritative history lessons from the Old Testaments of the Bible. The New King James version is a bit easier as it replaces all the ‘thees and thous’ with ‘you,’ but doesn’t alter much else.

The ‘science lessons I’ve learned are all free to borrow as ‘young adult’ science books available at your local library. There’s also layman science publications like Discover, Smithsonian Magazine, and Popular Science. If you’re more of a couch potato, try watching science-based shows like the PBS Nova series. Finally, there are organizations like ‘Reasons to Believe’ whose impressive materials bring science and faith together.

A word of caution:

Once you’ve studied hard and mastered the teachings of The Guiding Triad, including Bible, history, and basic science knowledge, your thoughts, eyes, and ears will become blindingly enlightened, and you’ll see the complete mosaic of the collective doings of man as a continuum with a beginning and end. And it’s not that great of a painting. I’ve seen better, scotch-taped to the grade school walls and refrigerators. Don’t panic, though, when you view it. Just lean back and have a cigar, or maybe you’d prefer some Rocky Road ice cream because there’s not a bloody thing you can do to stop the wheel from turning. You can pray for the situations passing by, but that’s it. Some folks like to label those dark instances as, “Well, it’s in God’s hands now!” That’s fair enough. Whatever floats your boat, I always say.

Here’s some humor to end with:

“As for nit-picking laws dictated to this generation, that are siphoning away freedom by telling us what to put on our bodies, or what not to put in our mouths, or how we have to show our ID, sign three forms and give a urine sample to buy a can of air at Walmart…

Well, I have a habit of disobeying those nit-pickers for the sole reason that it lets me take a swing (and a miss) at Big Brother and his system we’re being oppressed by with the least chance of suffering the fine of the infraction. And that makes me a happy camper for the rest of the day. On the rare occasion when I get caught, it further allows me to be a vocal dissident for a few hours. What? Did you think I always go by the book because you gathered as much from this message about seeing the big picture? Brother, are you ever naive. It looks to me like you need to get started with those Guiding Triad classes real soon.