Delay, Lord Jesus

https://www.wikiart.org/en/morteza-katouzian/grief-1983

They pray, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus," but I cannot pray with them.

My heart wants an escape hatch, a beam-me-up-Scottie, some ruby slippers to click.

There's no place like home.

There's no place like home.

But my spirit resists.

"Delay, Lord," it prays.

"Delay. Lord, and protect me from asking for the end before its time."

Oh Father, I want to be with you. How I ache to recline on your chest, to hear your eternal heart beat with my own ears, to walk in the rooms your artistry has made for me, to revel in your creativity and thoughtfulness, and to rest forever in your joys.

But if today were that great and terrible day of your coming, how many souls would pass into an eternity void of even the simplest pleasures?

No sun on their arms forever and forevermore.

The wind in their hair. Lost.

The sound of a whippoorwill.

Forgotten.

The feeling of clean sheets on their legs. Gone.

Music. Gone.

Beauty. Gone.

Light. Gone.

A hot shower. Gone.

The taste of a strawberry.

Only fear and regret and darkness and pain forever and forever...only the great sucking void left by the absence of God's bright presence.

Only the eternal echo of, "My will be done!" resounding in empty halls of an empty castle

Creation revels in the glory of God, but hell is an alien horror.

Hell is the cyclical praise of the natural earth come to a sudden stop.

Come, Lord Jesus?

No, no.

Wait, Lord Jesus. Wait.

We can wait.

Because if today were that great and horrible day, how many would be caught unprepared? How many would pass into a realm in which today's sick fear and despair have no end?

Yes, I see this violence. Yes, I taste on my tongue the bitterness of the hater of humans.

I can barely stand to see the chaos.

I can barely breathe.

Is hell so bad as even this? Worse too?

Oh, then delay, Lord Jesus. Delay.

Delay though it burns us to stay on this sin-scorched planet. We can bear it. We can endure for their sake

Receive all prayers that you might come with an outpouring of your Spirit. Come in invisible ways. Read every plea as, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

While we linger like the grass that fadeth,

come to make us more focused.

Come to make us more courageous.

Come to make us more reliant.

Come to help us see through the glass darkly so that we spend every resource well.

To die is gain, but to live is Christ? Then delay our gain. Hold our rest. Wait. Wait. And though these brief years of sorrow break us, make our sorrow yield a spiritual harvest beyond what we can ask or imagine.

Don't rescue us yet.

Let us stay, instead, for the rescue of the lost.

Let us take rush into the fray with the gospel

Send us into this darkness to tend the wounded.

Use our weary, war-torn souls to bring your children home.