This is not really the type of prayer request generally seen here, but I believe it to be important in light of our fast-changing environment--as well as the inevitable personal problems that I read on this site—problems that I recognize to be ubiquitous.
There is no doubt that our times have become more and more turbulent. I haven’t seen this much uncertainty since perhaps the 1960’s. But even then, when civil unrest and the cold war were in full advance, there didn’t seem to be the same widespread feeling of angst that I currently perceive.
Every day brings us closer to the end of the age. But the end has been approaching for thousands of years. And every passing day is precisely one more of those last days. Meanwhile, every generation since the apostilles has believed itself to be the final generation—often for good reason when considering the course of history. After all, there have been countless tsunamis of death, disease, tyranny and destruction flooding across the landscape of humanity. But the calamities have always abated or been localized to some degree before reemerging and, once again, bolstering the next generation into declaring itself to be the absolute grand finale. But who knows? We might go another thousand years (even though I quite sincerely doubt it).
I can’t speak for anyone else, but sometimes I find myself questioning my faith in this panorama of insecurity. There are occasions when I’m tempted to “walk away” as the beast rises up to wheedle me from within—enticing me to take the perceived "easy” way out. And now, as I write this, I realize that what I’ve comprehended as the last days is not necessarily the same as the end of the age. Regardless of when the end of the age arrives, we all live in our own last days. Therefore, I feel it important for us to humbly pray for each other in common—that we hold fast. This is both personal and general, as I strongly sense that I’m not the only one who periodically wrestles with this enigma.
2Pe 3:3 First, knowing this, that there will come in the last days scoffers walking according to their own lusts
2Pe 3:4 and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.
1Th_5:2 For you yourselves know accurately that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
Mike