The Absolute

"Truth? What is Truth?" Pilate mused when Yahshua answered him He came to testify of the Truth.

All things are relative, so therefore there is no absolute Truth.

But, if you follow that line of reasoning, then the statement itself is not absolute.

This implies that if one claims there is no absolute Truth, then this statement is not absolute, meaning that the opposite might be true, that there IS an absolute Truth.

But if there is an absolute Truth, then the statement which contradicts this is a LIE.

All things in this world are in motion.

If you sit in a chair watching cars go by, or you see the clouds floating across the sky, birds moving to and fro, then you may get the impression that you are still while everything else is moving around you.

Yet when you change your perspective and you can see yourself as part of a rotating Earth which orbits around the Sun, then you realize that from the perspective of the solar system you are in constant motion, even though you may have the impression of sitting still on a chair.

Einstein's relativity theory is based on this phenomenon where everything is in motion, and there is no absolute stillness in the universe.

Stillness is an illusion created by a limited and incomplete perspective.

Your senses may create the impression of stillness, but this impression of stillness disappears when we change our perspective.

Have you ever travelled by train, and as the train was waiting at the railway station another train was right next to you and appeared to be moving away from you?

But the moment you turned your head around and looked at the platform you noticed that it was not the train you observed which was moving away, but it was your train which was moving on.

By taking a different point of reference combined with the knowledge that this different point, -in the case of my example the platform-, cannot move, your perspective changed and you realized that your impression of stillness was just an illusion, and you were in fact moving.

Everything in our universe is in motion, even our solar system.

From our perspective our solar system appears to be anchored at a fixed point in the universe, and all other solar systems appear to be moving.

Yet seen from another perspective even our own solar system is in motion.

There is NO stillness in our dimension, and even in the dimensions beyond.

Even our concept of reality is relative.

We derive our idea of what is real and what is not from what our senses can register.

We can touch a wall, we can see the blue sky, we can smell an onion, all these things are registered and therefore considered as 'real' by our mind.

But suppose an Angel came down from Heaven and translated you so that you became part of the Angelic realm, and you were able to observe the physical reality from the metaphysical perspective.

Suddenly everything which you considered to be 'real' looks unreal to you, even the experience of time, just as from the physical perspective the metaphysical appears as 'unreal'.

From the metaphysical perspective the 'solid physical wall' suddenly is not solid anymore, but a projection of energy, very much in the same way as a holographic projection is an insubstantial projection of light to us.

Everything you thought of as 'real' now looks like a dream scenery, a simulation which you were part of, and your concept of reality and the meaning of Life changes drastically as a result of being able to see it from the greater perspective of the metaphysical reality.

But ultimately, even the metaphysical reality is relative.

In ALL of Creation you will search in vain for an absolute, because there is no absolute to be found.

Everything stands in relationship to other things, and all are relative and in motion.

That which we define as stillness is relative as long as our definition is based on the perspective of Creation.

So, there is no absolute, and there is no absolute stillness?

Ah, but you are making a classic mistake if you believe that.

There IS an Absolute, there IS an Absolute Stillness, and from that perspective we can define motion and reality accurately.

From the Absolute, Creation can be understood in its proper perspective.

You probably have guessed it by now: YHWH our Creator is the Absolute.

He is the Absolute Stillness, He is the Absolute Reality.

All things which are in motion and ALL realities which are to be found in Creation are defined and created by YHWH, and their exact definition and intensity of motion is determined and fixed by YHWH, the Absolute Center of Stillness and Reality.

All things we could possibly discover in Creation are relative to YHWH.

The moment we look away from Him and fix our eyes on Creation, we are immersing ourselves in relativity and non-absolutes.

When we assess motion and reality from our particular position within the motion and a given reality, we end up with a faulty incomplete picture, one which is the result of relativity and not based upon the perspective of the Absolute.

'Empty your mind', 'stay in the NOW', 'transcend your thoughts'!

I'm sure these slogans sound very familiar.

On the other side you hear the advice to 'repeat the mantra', 'recite scripture', 'focus on your picture of happiness', 'think positive'.

Although they aim to provide you with a stairway to Heaven, they do not rise above the fog of relativity.

All of them have in common that they take the one basic element which matters most out of the picture: it is not the emptying of the mind, not the mantra, not the verses of scripture, but it is the Ruach, the Spirit of our Creator which makes you part of the Absolute Stillness.

It is YHWH only Who can lift you up into His Absolute Perspective, and our Salvation consists of drawing our Soul completely back into the Absolute Stillness so that we can speak, act, think and do things which flow from the Absolute Stillness.

It is not the ideal of doing nothing which brings you the stillness you need, but the ideal of being part of YHWH's Stillness, and this Stillness can manifest itself in you sitting quietly in a chair enjoying YHWH's presence as you observe your thoughts, it can manifest itself in me writing this article, words emanating from the Stillness YHWH's Ruach brings into my heart.

The classic mistake many meditation practitioners make is that they fix their inner eye on something which is part of the motion and define their inner stillness relative to the objective of their choice.

Within Creation all things are relative and in motion.

So, when the objective of your meditation exercise is to 'empty yourself from your thoughts', then you have taken an idea of 'emptiness' as your reference point to your inner stillness.

That is the equivalent of appointing a chair on the veranda as your center of stillness, and the traffic passing you by as distractions from that stillness.

In doing so you forget that the appointed center of stillness is part of the motion of Earth.

You may focus on the repetition of a mantra as your guideway into stillness, but because you are not aiming your focus on your Creator, you end up crippling yourself by means of a stick which is relative and in motion, and the idea of inner stillness is really an illusion which is part of the motion.

By making yourself blind to your escapism into the motion you still remain part of the motion, no matter how much energy and time you invest in your particular form of escapism (which really is a form of denial).

There is only one way to escape the motion: by becoming part of the Absolute Stillness, which can be found in YHWH ONLY.

Yes, exercises such as Transcendental Meditation may have a (temporary) benefit on your health as you shift your attention away from that which caused your particular illness or weakness, but it does not take away the cause.

You may benefit in one area of your health, while years later you end up suffering in another area.

You have made the ideal of 'transcendence' your god, thus blinding yourself to the fact that your transcendence is an optical illusion caused by your fixation on your reference point by means of which you define transcendence.

In other words, rising above your thoughts and emptying your mind has become your ideal of stillness, but you made yourself blind to the fact that this idea of emptiness is just another part of the fabric of motion, as well as the fact that the empty mind which is not protected by YHWH's firewall  can be filled with unwanted metaphysical Forces your senses cannot register.

Perhaps you found beneficial effects in the 'Power Of Now', and you have dedicated your time to practicing the meditation exercise which aims to liberate you from being immersed in thoughts about past and future by focusing on the present.

Yet this meditation exercise too is nothing but a denial technique, because you have made the 'NOW' as your point of reference, an abstract  idea of the present.

And as is the case with ALL forms of denial, they turn into a form of idolatry where you end up worshipping the technique and the ideas behind the exercise, all of which are relative and part of the motion.

There is only ONE Elohim, ONE Creator, and it is ONLY in Him that you will find the Stillness which changes your perspective and takes you out of your thoughts so that you can be the master of your thoughts instead of the other way round.

Yes, we should be masters over our thoughts and not slaves identifying with our thoughts.

Thoughts can be manipulated, and it IS important to learn to observe and acquire objectivity towards your thoughts so that you can let YHWH, the Center of Stillness, deal with them.

Not that YHWH's Stillness equals the absence of thoughts, that is another classic mistake many make.

It is being part of the perspective of Stillness where you can rule over your thoughts.

You can be completely still in your mind when you are part of the Stillness, or you can muse on thoughts emanating from that perspective and yet be completely part of that Stillness.

What I am referring to is being filled by YHWH's Spirit, that is when you are part of the Absolute Stillness.

As I wrote in my previous article, our thoughts can be a big obstacle because they can be influenced by malignant Forces of Evil.

That is why it IS important to learn to observe your thoughts from the perspective of your Spirit ("Be Still And Know..."), but such observation can ONLY be effective if you center your Soul and Spirit in your Creator.

Without that reference point, where are you going to find the Stillness which truly takes you OUT of your thoughts because you are IN the Stillness?

That really the problem with many meditation exercises: they aim to take you out of your thoughts WITHOUT being part of the Absolute Stillness of YHWH, and that is always doomed to fail and become a denial mechanism of Truth.

Because there is only one Absolute Stillness, and it is ONLY this one form of Absolute Stillness which can save you from the Evil poison contained within certain thoughts and feelings, the only Stillness which is able to take you out of the motion of relativity.

ALL forms of meditation exercises and techniques which aim to quiet your mind are doomed to fail if they take YHWH out of the picture, because they inevitably end up focusing themselves on the paraphernalia, the things which are relative and part of the motion, and thus define stillness not by the Source of the Absolute Stillness, but by a perspective which still is part of the motion.

Emptying your mind will not suffice.

Filling your mind with 'scripture' will not suffice.

All too often you will find the Christian religious establishment overreacting to what they perceive as 'the threat from Eastern religions', and their reaction pushes them all the way over to the other side which is just as wrong.

You cannot derive Truth from a counter reaction.

You cannot be still by countering the turmoil of scattered thoughts with the turmoil of religious thoughts.

If you are upset because someone hurt you very deeply with malignant intent, then inevitably the assault of Evil upon your Soul will express itself in the form of ongoing thoughts which tend to repeat the scene over and over in your head.

You will NOT remedy this by using the words of a Psalm over and over again, using these words as a mantra.

If you do that, you are trying to counter the inner turmoil of negative thoughts by immersing yourself in a turmoil of religious sounding thoughts.

It will not help you one bit.

At best it will have a soothing effect because the words you repeat are associated with good childhood memories or something of that order, and your repetition of the words conjures up the feelings associated with the memories so that the Bible verses you use as a mantra end up function as a mental aspirin taking away the symptoms of the pain, but not addressing the cause.

In a situation as I have just described I always need to stand back from my thoughts, because they act as an Evil obstruction which tries to get between my beloved Creator and me.

I always do my best to stand back from thoughts in such a case and I cry out with my Soul to my Creator to reach out and lift me into His Stillness.

I cannot be still without Him.

Once My Heavenly Father fills me with His Stillness, then He may inspire thoughts which emanate from this Stillness.

That is how I write articles on this blog: from the Stillness I find in YHWH thoughts come into existence which teach me and give me insight I previously lacked, and they manifest in words which I write down.

Thus, by writing these articles I am not only building you up, but I myself am built up and given insight and understanding, and this really is the greatest reward I could possibly hope for, to be given jewels of wisdom and understanding by my Creator in person.

To address the cause of the compulsive rise of thoughts, which is the assault of Evil, you need to counter it with Good, and you will find Good ONLY in your Creator, just as you will find the liberating Stillness in YHWH ONLY.

One of the most important discoveries I was allowed to make in my Life is that I have NO Goodness within myself, just as I have NO Stillness within me.

I can be Good ONLY if I become part of YHWH's Goodness, and I can experience Stillness ONLY if I am centered in YHWH's Stillness.

That is why it is so important NEVER to make a meditation exercise your means of Salvation, because you end up crippling yourself and complicating the issue.

At best, it is a tool, an instrument standing in service of your desire to be part of YHWH's Stillness.

At worst, it is a tool helping you to escape from YHWH's Stillness.

If you need Stillness, by all means go sit in a chair and close your eyes, being aware of how the blood flows through your veins and of thoughts which try to steal your attention away from your awareness.

But NEVER make this your main objective, but rather use it as a crutch to help you get any obstacles out of the way between you and your Creator.

Your objective should be to reach out to YHWH and cry out to Him to be part of His Stillness and His Absolute Truth, because it is in YHWH ONLY you will find Salvation from Evil and the power to be Good.

Without that objective your meditation exercise is doomed to become a form of idolatry, and it will not cure you but rather mask the symptoms and worsen the cause.

Without the Absolute Stillness, the best we can hope for is relative stillness, which really is not stillness.

It is an optical illusion masking the fact that we are not still, but part of the motion.

Don't waste your time and money on purchasing materials which claim to lead you to the Utopia of Ultimate Stillness.

The only one who will benefit is the guru or author of the materials who will take your money and buy a nice big house and matching car.

YHWH is your Father, and He is there for you to help you.

All it takes is an investment in time on your part.

But even this word 'investment' may give you a wrong idea, as if you have to 'sacrifice' time.

No, the time I spend with YHWH is the best time of my Life, because in His presence I experience Joy, Goodness, Stillness, and if I shed a tear it is because of the Kindness and Goodness He pours out into my heart.

It is quality time, the best time of your Life, and as a bonus you are saved from the Evil trying to influence you in your Life as you become part of the Absolute Stillness and Absolute Truth.

The Satan made the mistake of falling for the Lie.

He made himself blind to the fact that YHWH is the Absolute.

'No', he thought, 'everything is relative, and I can be just as much an Absolute unto myself as YHWH claims to be an Absolute to us', thus denying the Absolute nature of YHWH.

YHWH defines all realities, and He defines Good and Evil.

All realities as well as Good and Evil are relative to Him, and when the Satan rejected YHWH he rejected the Absolute and became part of the motion of relativity.

He adopted his own idea of truth, and since 'all truth is relative, does this not imply that a lie has an equal value as truth and ceases to be a lie if you place it in a different perspective'?

Just as he denies Truth, he tries to create his own reality.

Like those who focus on the meditation technique as their point of reference for stillness are really defining motion as stillness because their point of reference is in motion and relative, the Satan's point of reference is a Lie from YHWH's Absolute perspective.

He rejects YHWH's paradigm of Good and Evil and embraces his own Machiavellian concept, he rejects YHWH's Truth in order to embrace his own idea of truth which stands in opposition to YHWH's Truth and therefore really is a Lie.

He sees himself as the superior intellect, but how superior can you be if you reject reality and make yourself blind to Truth, fleeing into a fantasy of your own thoughts?

Do not follow the example of the one who embraced a Lie and turned himself into a prisoner of a psychotic fantasy world which will end in destruction, but make it your goal in Life to find YHWH's Truth, YHWH's Stillness.

Without being intimate with the Truth of your Creator you will be susceptible to lies, without being part of the Absolute Stillness of your Creator you will be vulnerable to the turmoil of thoughts when Evil uses them as a battery ram against the gates of your Soul.

And you will find that intimacy in the One who is the gateway into Heaven, Yahshua.

Make it your first and primary objective to know Him and turn your heart to Him, because in Him you will find your Heavenly Father and the great Renewer, the Spirit of our Creator.

Whether you sit still on a chair seeking to be silent, or you ponder on a spiritual matter, do it as part of the greater objective of being close to your Creator.

Remember the words in Psalm 46, 'be still and know that I am YHWH'.

Learn to stand back from your thoughts in order to be part of YHWH's Stillness so that His thoughts may fill your mind.

Then you will be able to enjoy the blessed Stillness within the silence of your mind, then you will be able to enjoy the blessed Stillness within the thoughts flowing from the Stillness into your mind, then you will suddenly feel the presence of the Word urging you to do something, speak of write something which the Word will make known to you, and you will become an expression of Heaven on Earth.

Have a blessed Shabbat, the image of the Stillness and the Peace we find in our Heavenly Father YHWH and the sign He has given to His own.

The Greatest Victory

The greatest power lies in forgiveness.

That is where you deny the Evil One access to your being, your Soul.

Learn to let go instead of upsetting yourself by a compulsive train of thoughts which trigger negative emotions, which in turn give rise to more thoughts triggering more emotions.

It is a vicious cycle which looks like a perpetuum mobile, a downward spiral which continually seems to increase in strength, thus intensifying its gravity pull into a Dark bottomless pit which drains you from your energy, you Life-force.

The mastery over your own thoughts is the most difficult thing to do, and yet as you learn to submit your thoughts to the Sovereign Who rules over heart and mind, YHWH, you find yourself wondering over the fact that it really is the most easy and simple thing to do.

It is just that you forgot how easy it was because you kept investing energy in negative thoughts and associated emotions, and by this investment of energy (a manipulation of your Soul by the Forces of Evil), your thoughts turned into an autonomous machinery over which you seemed to have no control whatsoever.

Learning to be still and watching your thoughts, submitting each single one of them to the authority of your Creator, is one of the most important things you can learn in Life.

Why should we seek to submit our thoughts to our Creator instead of trying to subdue and tame our thoughts through sheer force of will?

Because we cannot generate anything which is Good.

Just try to master your thoughts through force of will, and in the end you will discover that you can't.

To combat Evil effectively you need to counter it with the force of Good.

You cannot combat Darkness if you are lacking the Light, and that is why you need to learn to be still so that the Light of YHWH can shine on the assault of Darkness within you and destroy it by its mere presence.

YHWH is the only One Who has the power to overcome Evil within us, and that is why it is so important to learn to be still in our hearts and minds.

Even the stillness comes from Him.

I know all too well that I do not have this stillness within myself.

When Evil attacks me, the inner turmoil my Soul experiences needs to be addressed by the One in Whom there is no turmoil, the One Who is the ultimate Source of Rest and Stillness.

In those moments I am like a small child crying out to my Abba, My Father YHWH, to take my hand and lift me up into His stillness so that I might be still and rescued from the attack of the Evil One.

And the Evil One has many vehicles working on behalf of Darkness so that he has ample opportunity to make the Life of YHWH's own miserable.

Did not Yahshua make this very clear in His parable about the wicked tenants, a parable you will find in Matthew 21?

The Owner of the vineyard sent out His servants to get His fruit, yet when the tenants of the vineyard saw the servants they beat them, treated them shamefully even to the point where they murdered some of them.

When the Owner finally sent His own Son, the tenants saw His coming as an opportunity to kill Him and take possession of the vineyard.

Ironically, when Yahshua told this parable He specifically referred to the religious leaders in His days, the ones who probably could recite large portions of the written Torah by memory yet who looked upon the living Torah as their enemy.

Not much has changed since those days, because just as those religious leaders were nothing but clowns in Babel's religious circus, their sons proclaiming the name of Yahshua build upon the foundation of blood as established by their forefathers, excluding, harassing and treating YHWH's own shamefully and with contempt while they dress up in holy robes and eat the fatted calf.

YHWH's own usually are left wanting in the cold streets as Babel's clowns celebrate and enjoy the good things Babel rewards them with.

The Evil One has many sons and daughters roaming through the alleys of this nebulous world.

All too often they appear as noble and respectable citizens while YHWH's own may look like beggars in the street.

All too often YHWH's own have lost their way for a season and look as if they are the greatest sinners on Earth, while the sons of Darkness seem to be the sinless, holy offspring of prophets.

Yet those polishes icons of religion, those smooth liars polluting the air with their eloquent empty words, all will have their share in the outer Darkness.

Do not let appearances deceive you.

YHWH knows the heart and mind of a person, and He knows who belongs to Him, and who belongs to the Evil One.

And YHWH is a faithful and kind Father Who forgives the sins of His own.

He does not see us as prisoners of a particular moment in time, but when He looks at us He sees the entire time of our Life on Earth as one, so that the outcome is already known to Him from the very beginning.

YHWH knows who and what we are in the end, and what we experience as the passing of time and the change of our character over time really is the result of YHWH sculpting our Soul.

Pain and adversity are part of this process, yet even though I do not like this one bit, I see the fruit it brings about and the growth in intensity of YHWH's Light shining in someone.

This is the result of living in a world which is like a negative film of reality: the tears of this world are the laughter of the Kingdom of Heaven, the sadness of this world is the joy of Heaven.

Whatever is accepted in Heaven is rejected on Earth, and whatever is esteemed in Heaven is spat upon in this cold, Dark world.

Because our world is Dark, vessels of Light are perceived as a threat which needs to be eliminated.

When you belong to YHWH, your mere presence on Earth is seen as an offence by the powers of Evil, and you encounter suffering because of this simple fact.

That is why the tears you shed now are really the result of the joy which is yours in the Kingdom of Heaven.

You encounter sadness, adversity and pain because you belong to the Light.

No, this is not something anyone of us desires, but I would rather have my share among those who are treated shamefully because they are the servants of the Owner of the vineyard than to be part of the workers of iniquity who seek to steal the vineyard to satisfy their Evil desires.

And we are more than servants, we are sons and daughters of the Most High in Yahshua.

Take heart, you are not alone.

Your Heavenly Father watches over you every single split second of the day, because you are VERY precious in His eyes.

When you suffer, bring to mind the privilege of knowing in your Soul that you are loved and precious in the eyes of the Almighty Creator, that you know Him as your personal Father where others are and forever will be irredeemably lost in the outer Darkness.

Those who make you miserable and treat you shamefully have much to fear, because the time will come that your Father will act and send His soldiers to take them out of your way.

I am not only referring to the time of YHWH's judgment, but also to moments in your Life when YHWH eliminates the adversity in your Life and you see with your own eyes how those who were your enemies are struck down.

Yet our greatest enemy is not on the outside, but within ourselves.

Yes, we are our own worst enemy.

The greatest battle we face lies within us, in our own emotions and thoughts which can be triggered and used against us.

That is why it is so important to learn to cry out to YHWH and not allow the train of thoughts to swallow you up and inspire you to act in accordance with the suggestions of the thoughts.

Learning to feel the reality of your thoughts and letting it hang in the air as you cry out to YHWH to take your hand and lift you up into His stillness is of the utmost importance.

Because that is where your ultimate victory begins and spreads from the 'inner' world into the 'outer' world.

The 'inner' world is the Kingdom of Heaven, the 'outer' world is our existence in this dream realm.

The battlefield of your own heart is where you defeat the enemy.

If you are able to see your own thoughts as if they do not belong to you, if you can feel the storm of your own feelings and emotions pass you by without being swept up by it, if you can submit it all to the One who has the power, you are invincible and a force for Good in this world to be reckoned with.

Because HE is invincible and the Rock that crushes our Adversary.

Our greatest victory is when we learn to get out of the way of this Rock and be one with Him.

Today is Shabbat day, the image of the rest and stillness I referred to in this article.

So feed your Soul with the Truth behind the words I have been given to write, and have a very blessed Shabbat.

The Hand

Misery, nothing but misery.

Like a thick foggy blanket resting upon the Earth all sense of direction is hidden.

No purpose, no perspective and hope for something better, just a thick cover of misery over my Soul.

What am I to do?

Am I supposed to run through the thick fog which robs me of my vision?

I know the road has many pitfalls, and where the obstacles hide is anybody's guess.

So am I to run knowing that I will fall flat on my face and hurt myself?

Am I to run without knowing where I should run to?

I can't run, I can't move, because there is no vision that I might have a sense of direction.

Even if I carefully try to put one foot in front of the other, the blindness the fog imposes on my senses may cause me to walk in circles, or get off the road into the swamp which lurks on both sides of the road.

So what am I to do but to stand still as I have for so many years, crying out through the thick fog to my Creator Who has been silent for all this time?

I used to have a much better vision, there used to be much less fog, but nowadays all is grey and hidden from my sight.

I cry again, only to hear the blanket swallow the sound of my voice in its impenetrable silence.

No response, nothing.

I know I am tested, but I do not have the strength to endure.

And still, I do.

I persist and stand still, waiting, hoping, praying, crying, believing, drowning in my sadness.

And yet I live, enduring in spite of it all.

The tide of the sadness seems to grow continually like a sea swallowing the beach more and more with each minute of the tide, and it has reached my mouth, taking away my breath.

The fog I see all around me is the spirit of the sea rising up from the netherworld to become the suffocating blanket smothering my cries, robbing me of my breath.

I take short shallow breaths to compensate for the lack of air my Soul needs, trying to survive in a scenery which should have taken away any remnant of hope.

It is not because of my strength I still stand and wait, because my strength has been broken a long time ago.

It is not because of my patience I still endure, but because there is nothing else I can do but wait and endure.

I don't understand the reason, and searching for the answers to my many questions I am greeted by silence in return, a wordless message which answers none of my questions, as if they do not matter.

And perhaps they don't.

Perhaps they are nothing but cries of pain, and it is not the cries which need to be answered, but the pain which gave rise to the questions needs to be addressed and removed.

Yes, the pain, my faithful companion on this road of misery.

I know the road is supposed to lead me to a destiny, but I have been standing still as hostage of the fog for the longest time, so I am not getting any closer to my destiny.

I just stand still, frozen in a cold damp lake devouring my very Soul.

And yet I wait for that outstretched Hand which lifts me up above the fog into the light of the sun, the Hand which rescues and takes me to my destiny.

That is where the pain comes from: the absence of that Hand.

I wait, and I wait, and I have waited for the longest time, yet no Hand suddenly cleaved through the blanket, no Hand took me by the neck to lift me up out of this cold world.

So I am left in total isolation, left in the company of the Shadows of this nebulous world as the familiar stranger.

I abide in the icy cold of an alien environment where danger lurks around every corner, a zone where people are turned into organic robots and rewarded for their servitude to the exploiters and the predators.

Unseen forces hunt me and stalk my very Soul, and I can hear the noise of my hunters scurrying all around me.

I don't know their plans, but I know all too well that their schemes will bring me nothing but misery and all manner of Evil.

They set traps, they dig holes, all for the single purpose of hurting me, punishing me for my refusal to be one of their faithful servant robots.

The fog is their natural habitat, and they can see clearly through the thick blanket which robs me of my sight.

I can only guess, based on the sounds I hear and the faint Shadows I notice hurrying past me.

How could I even begin to run blindly in this maze of terror knowing that traps are set all around me?

Yes, they would love to see me run away from the agony they caused only to fall into the trap of their greater agony, they would love to see panic and fall into their power.

If that should happen, my terror truly would know no end.

But I know of their plans, I know what makes them tick, I know of their tricks and strategies.

And that is my protection in this danger zone.

So even when I look and hope for the Hand to come, the silent waiting conveyed a message from my Father giving me the information to protect me.

The silence came from His presence, not from His absence.

It's just that I did not know how to listen which made me feel as if I did not matter to Him.

I thought He ignored me, yet He was listening all the time, not addressing the symptoms of my complaints but dealing with the cause which gave birth to the complaints.

Is it not He Who gave me eyes to see, is it not He Who showed me the works of the Predators, is it not He Who made me aware of the Shadows scurrying around me?

And is it not this knowing of the Truth which protects me?

Yet how this silence, this existence in limbo, presses on my Soul like a heavy weight.

I stand on a road where no one can be trusted, for all have faded into the Darkness.

The fact that I managed to survive is a miracle in itself, even though the miracle came in the form of an unbearable weight placed upon my Soul.

What are you to do when the Shadows use your own family you grew up in to possess and devour your very Soul?

All this time I stood frozen in the fog, letting my eyes be fed by the tormenting presence of the icy blanket chilling me to the bone.

It was only when I stopped looking at the fog and bowed my head in sadness that I noticed Your Hand.

That is when I noticed I was standing right in the palm of Your Hand all along.

The scurrying Shadows appeared to be moving only because You were moving me forward past their presence.

They were the ones standing still as frozen fossils in an icy landscape, not I.

In fact, it was YOUR Hand moving me closer towards Your destiny for me.

Yet I still stand here in this fog like an icy statue, waiting, hoping, and yes, believing in that Hand.

I know I am safe in the palm of Your Hand, I know I am loved by the One Who created everything.

How could I not rejoice in this privilege of knowing I am loved by my own Father?

Yet what will become of this world?

The fog seems to have devoured all of it, and when in plain daylight the blanket robs all of Creation from my sight, then what will the hour of Darkness bring?

And I know that hour is very close, the hour of the great sacrifice.

Who is left that truly seeks You, my dear Father, who is left to love You as You are instead of following after a religious icon of what You are not?

How many are left to love You without any ulterior motive of personal gain, how many can still love You when their love brings them pain and humiliation?

How many can follow in your Son's footsteps?