Bart and I recently vacationed in Lake of the Ozarks. About mid-week, we had a rainy day and decided to drive to a well-known restaurant and shopping spot. On the drive we were listening to and singing along with the radio. A phrase from an old 1970s song got stuck in my head. From time-to-time lyrics will reverberate in my mind; However, this phrase was different. I felt the Holy Spirit highlighting it for a purpose.
Days passed as I continued to reflect on three words, “hold the line”. I asked the Lord to help me understand why this phrase was being emphasized. As I sat with the Lord, the letter to the church in Philadelphia came to mind. I also heard, “love is patient”. I do not have the fullness of this message yet, but I believe the Lord is speaking about “hold the line”.
You are invited to join me in listening this week.
“Hold the line” definitions:
• Not yield to the pressure of a difficult situation.
• maintain a telephone connection during a break in the conversation.
• Maintain the existing position or state of affairs.
• This term alludes to former military tactics, in which a line of troops was supposed to prevent an enemy breakthrough.
• a military metaphor, from the idea of a line of soldiers withstanding an attack without moving from their positions.
““And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens, and no one will shut, who shuts, and no one opens: “I know your works. Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not but are lying I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word of patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. I am coming soon; hold fast to what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God; you will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”
Revelation 3:7-13 NRSV
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Thank you. This word is Kairos!