2 Corinthians 12:7-10. This is not random, it was the Breviary reading for morning prayer this morning. It is one of my favorite readings with one of my favorite lines "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." It opens, though, with Paul saying God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him from getting too elated due to the abundance of the revelations.

As I read that this morning I thought "Lucky Paul! For all his sufferings, he was so close to Jesus, in time and in his heart, that the revelations he was receiving brought him nothing but elation!" I am also receiving messages, or revelations, o whatever you want to call them. It took me some time to discern what they were, to be honest. Some of them, in fact most, are joyful in a way - they are promises of what is coming - what God has planned for us in the new era he is bringing about. He wants to bring us to the era of peace in unity with Him. It will culminate ultimately with Jesus' return at some point and the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on earth (I am not claiming to have any ide howlong this will take, just that God is giving me messages that this is coming and i am to preapre myself and try to prepare others).

In order for us to get to this new era of peaace, the world has to wake up from its sinful sleep and repent. For that reason, there are many more sufferings this world must go through, and many of my "revelations" relate to the sufferings. For example, I know that the COVID-19 vaccines are causing much more damage to humanity than is currently being acknowledged, or even known. I also know that famine and war remain with us, and that the Western world is going to collapse in ways that we cannot fully understand, which will make the famine and war more likely. My country, the US, will suffer greatly, I am sure of it. This is not doom and gloom, however, it is God's mercy. He is calling us back to him through suffering, He is letting us experience the consequences of our actions so that we learn that only He is our true king, and we must repent of our sinful ways and turn back to Him.

It also occurred to me that Paul was preaching and working to spread the Word immediately after Christ's first coming. So Paul was filled with the new-found love and hope from having actually seen Jesus, at least in a vision, from knowing people who lived with Jesus, and from the hope born of the burgeoning Church. He was truly a man with a mission and expected Christ's return to be soon! Thus, his revelations brought him elation! He must have thought "Christ is coming soon! I must get the word world ready!" Two thousand years later, I feel the exact same thing, but my revelations are coming prior to Christ's second coming after two millennia of seeing how the world accepted Christ's message and Paul's revelations and teachings. The early Church was in the growth stage, fresh off the first coming of Christ. It had massive success, along with massive suffering, but now, two thousand plus years later, the world is largely forgetting Christ's message and trying to push Him aside.

It won't work, because Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, but it will mean the world has to go through quite a bit before it feels the elation of Christ's return. Still, though, all of that suffering will be so worth it in the end.