Synchronicity

 It doesn’t happen often, but once in a great while, two ideas seemingly at odds with each other converge and synchronize. What people want and what people need are often incongruent. You may want to single-handedly attempt to bankrupt the local pizza buffet in one sitting, but what you need is a nice brisk walk around your neighborhood. You may want to impulse buy that muscle car for zero down at 12% for fifteen years that will depreciate in value by half the moment you drive it off the lot, but what you need is a used minivan you can actually afford because you’ve got kids. It’s hard to fit two kids in the trunk of a two-seater.

The internal battle between what we want and what we need is a constant struggle, one that we all face from time to time. It's a battle of desires and necessities, and the hope is that we choose need over want more often than not. However, in light of the current state of the world, the evidence seems to suggest a different story.

Being the speculative weasels they are, some within the household of faith have caught on to this inward struggle and have discovered new and inventive ways to monetize people’s predispositions to gravitate toward wants rather than needs. You have an entire cottage industry of folks who tell people exactly what they want to hear because when you confirm someone’s biases, and when all you are is an echo of their presuppositions and desires, they’re more likely to support your ministry, even though what they’re doing isn’t ministry but rather exchanging the truth of God for a lie and serving the creature rather than the Creator.

There’s good money to be made in keeping people comfortable in their sins and not challenging them to repentance and righteousness. It’s the modern-day version of selling indulgences, but for far bigger stakes than the letches who invented them could ever dream of. People loving their sins more than they love God is not a new phenomenon, but it has grown to unprecedented levels in recent times. We see the effects of it in every denomination, and it’s both tragic and heartbreaking.

Because I fear God, I’ve never been one to indulge people's wants. That way lies ruin and compromise to the point that one day, I would find myself standing before the Almighty with blood on my hands and having no way to justify it. It's crucial, therefore, to prioritize our needs over our wants, to maintain our moral integrity, and to avoid such a fate.

It’s not an easy road, but it’s the right road, and I have no choice but to walk it lest I fall under God’s judgment. It’s gotten to the point that those claiming to be ambassadors of Christ boast in their hatred of the truth to such an extent that even those of the world look upon them and insist that they’ve gone one bridge too far. When the supposed children of God are cheering on the most depraved and hedonistic of practices, justifying them by twisting scripture until it becomes unrecognizable, you know that judgment is not far off.

Serendipitously, there are rare instances when wants and needs converge, and this is one such instance. By an overwhelming margin, you’ve decided that our next journey will be the last days of the world and the last days of the church.

For those of you who voted for Job all I can do is pinkie promise that once we’re through with these two studies, we will delve into the book of Job without further delay. Those of you who have children understand the implications of a pinky promise. I could be exhausted, dead on my feet, wanting nothing more than to fall into bed, but if my little one reminds me that I pinky promised her a story before bedtime, I have no choice but to tell it to her. I think she’s caught on, though, and I get the feeling she uses that as her ace in the hole every time I’m reticent of doing something. Even though sometimes I don’t remember having made said promise, I chalk it up to old age, but I’m a tad suspicious about it nonetheless.

Anyway, that’s the update. We will commence with the study of the last days of the world in short order, and for what it’s worth, I do believe it is necessary and timely.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.