Beloved Friend,
You know what happens when a parent walks into a room.
It does not matter what was happening a second ago. The rough play stops, the sibling who was making everyone’s life difficult suddenly discovers manners they did not have five minutes earlier. Nobody announced a rule change or issued a warning. The presence itself did the work. The moment that parent steps out however, even briefly, you already know what happens next. The chaos that was being held back by nothing more than a presence comes rushing back in like it was waiting at the door. Which, honestly, it was.
This is not just a family dynamic. Think about an exam hall. There are always multiple invigilators but there is usually one, you know the one, whose presence alone keeps the entire room honest. The moment that particular person steps out briefly, something shifts immediately. Phones appear. Things that were being suppressed by the weight of that presence begin to surface the second it lifts.
That is the picture I want you to hold in your mind as you read this.
What is happening on this earth right now, on a scale so vast we cannot fully comprehend it, looks exactly like this.
The Holy Spirit is here. Still active, and still restraining. Second Thessalonians 2:6-7 puts it plainly, telling us that there is One who restrains, and that this restraint is the reason certain things have not yet been fully unleashed. The lawless one cannot fully operate, the full weight of darkness cannot fully descend, specific operations are being capped, not because evil lacks motion, rather it is that there is a presence on this earth holding things at a particular threshold.
This is what makes the current state of the world so sobering to sit with. As terrible as things are right now, as frightening as the headlines were and still are (not a lot of people know what happened to Reverend Ezekiel Dachomo’s family; or maybe we’re aware and just desensitized), as much as it seems like darkness is having its way, what we are seeing is darkness operating under restraint. This is the held back version. This is chaos with a ceiling on it.
If God were to give you a genuine glimpse into what things will look like when the Spirit withdraws, I believe it would silence every complaint you have ever had about the current state of things. Not that your current pain is not real or your current grief is not valid. It is. The mercy that is keeping things from reaching their full darkness is so enormous that seeing it clearly would bring you to your knees in gratitude for what has been held back on your behalf and move you to act on behalf of others.
Here is something worth sitting with though. God’s mercy is not His endorsement. The fact that He is restraining the full consequences of darkness from descending does not mean He is indifferent to what is happening or that He is cosigning the state of things. A parent who keeps an older sibling from going too far with a younger one is not approving of the bullying that is already happening. The restraint is mercy. The mercy is not agreement. It is not God looking at the current state of the earth and nodding along. It is Him, in His patience, holding a door open that our rebellion would have slammed shut long ago, giving space for repentance, for harvest, for people to come home before the ceiling lifts entirely. Second Peter 3:9 says He is not slow concerning His promises as some count slowness, rather He is patient toward us, not wishing that any should perish. The patience is mercy. The mercy is not permission.
Revelation describes in sobering detail what begins to be unleashed as divine restraint lifts across the earth through the seal judgements. The picture is not gradual. The shift is not slow. When the restrainer moves, things move immediately and intensely. Scripture says the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and I want to be clear that this is not a reference to timing or darkness in the literal sense. It is a reference to the unexpectedness of it, the instantaneous nature of it. One moment the ceiling is in place. The next moment it is not. The transition will not announce itself with a long warning period for people to get their affairs in order.
This matters enormously for how we approach the time we have right now.
Right now is an advantage. The Spirit is still here, which means there is still a restraint on the fullness of darkness, still an openness in the spiritual atmosphere for the Gospel to move, still a window for harvest, still a season for intercession to accomplish what intercession can only accomplish while this restraint is in place. This window is not permanent. No window is.
So there is a duty that rests on every believer, not only the ones in pulpits, not only the ones in full time ministry. The ones in offices, in markets, in schools, in homes, in neighborhoods, in ordinary Tuesday evenings and regular Monday mornings. The harvest does not only need workers in religious spaces. It needs workers everywhere people actually are. The task has never been segregated to the few. It belongs to all of us.
Intercession needs to rise. Witness needs to be intentional. The urgency of this season is not an invitation to panic, it is an invitation to purpose. To understand the times the way the sons of Issachar did and respond accordingly. To make full use of the restraint that is still in place, the open door that is still open, the advantage that is still ours while the Parent is still in the room.
With thoughts of kindness,
ABBA’s Shofar.