Scroll back. I'm a young person studying the Bible. Someone gives me a set of lessons by Emilio Knechtle translated and smuggled into Communist Romania and I devoured them. Learning many Biblical teachings, including the 2300-day prophecy from chapters 7 - 9 of the book of Daniel. I find the intricacy and precision, as well as the meaning of the prophecy, awe-inspiring.
Scroll forward a bit. I'm an adult, part of the Church that helped me understand the prophecy, and I come to realize that many are still confused. I wonder why. It turns out there are some who feel it has caused spiritual trauma. I do notice that the teaching, which pertains to solemn things like probation and judgment, has apparently done some harm by the legalistic way they were presented.
Scroll forward again. A personal drama leads me to question my faith. In the midst of that struggle, I learn more fully about justification by faith being the core teaching of Scripture. I return to the teachings of the Bible with this new lens.
Scroll forward a bit more. Knowing by heart the years and the beasts, and the sevens of Revelation, and being stuck in reading the final events like I always did. Linear and sequential. But I restudy the 2300-day prophecy from Daniel. I notice for the first time that as one maps out the prophecy, the Cross lands in the middle. And I wonder if that's God revealing in an image what I learned so painfully years before - that the Cross needs to be in the middle of everything, or the very thing He intended to inform and guide us becomes our undoing.
Experiencing a strange feeling, a mixture of pandemic, presidential elections, more worries and less freedom, Sunday law maybe coming and Jesus not yet coming? Put the Cross where it belongs - in the middle of your map-life journey.