When the landmarks disappear.

Ancient Gates, the Wilderness, and the Flow of Eternity

There is something deeply unsettling about watching landmarks disappear. Not because God is absent, but because the structures that once gave us stability begin to fade. 

We look at the world and it feels as if a fog has rolled in. The shared assumptions that once anchored society — honesty, integrity, a common respect for truth — seem to be shifting beneath our feet. The world order we relied on feels fragile, and that fragility unsettles us.

Closer to home, personal landmarks disappear too. A regular monthly salary. A defined role. A predictable future. The rhythms that once reassured us begin to change. And when those landmarks fade, we instinctively ask, “Where is God in all of this?”

But perhaps the better question is this: What if God has not disappeared at all? What if only the props have?

In my medical work, I have seen how life can continue long after science had given up. A patient with pneumonia or severe COVID may struggle to walk across a room. Oxygen saturation drops. Strength fades. Yet as long as breath remains, life remains. Breathing is one of the last functions to disappear. In Alzheimer’s disease, memory fades first. Recognition follows. Even eating eventually becomes difficult. But the memory to breathe persists almost to the very end.

That is how close God is. 

Closer than salary. 

Closer than certainty. 

Closer than any system that once gave us peace. 

As close as breath.

And yet when the fog rolls in, we panic. I panic. Too many responsibilities, too many expectations, too many unanswered emails. 

But if I sit down and breathe slowly, something shifts. The panic is rarely about the workload itself; it is about the “I” that believes it must hold everything together. The ego that insists, “I must perform. I must succeed. I must not fail.” When that “I” steps aside, perspective returns. And something deeper becomes visible.

When landmarks disappear, we often call it wilderness. The familiar reassurances no longer reassure. The path we thought we were walking fades into uncertainty. All that remains is breath, heartbeat, and unknowing. The wilderness feels empty, but it is not empty of God. It is empty of props.

Israel learned this more than once. In the desert on the way to the Promised Land, there was manna daily, water from a rock, a cloud by day and fire by night. The lesson was simple and profound: 

He is enough. 

Later, in Babylonian exile, Israel was uprooted and displaced. Yet instead of telling them to resist or flee, God told them to settle down, build houses, plant gardens, and live faithfully in exile. 

Those who ran perished. 

Those who settled discovered God in Babylon. 

Much of Israel’s wisdom literature was shaped during that exile. 

The wilderness was not God’s abandonment; it was a different kind of classroom.

The wilderness teaches one lesson: He is enough. 

The wilderness is real, but abandonment is not. 

Feelings of abandonment are powerful and convincing, but they are not truth.

This brings us to Psalm 24. For many years I read it without truly understanding it. “Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come in.” 

Who are these gates? What are these doors? 

In The Passion Translation, the line reads, “Open up, you ancient gates! Open up, you doors, and let the King of Glory enter. Let eternity flow through you.” 

That final phrase reframes the entire psalm.

The gates are not city walls. 

They are us. 

We are the ancient gates. 

Our hearts are the doors.

To “lift up your heads” is to lift your awareness above the narrative of scarcity and threat. It is to raise your interior gaze beyond fear, defensiveness, and self-protection. The ego says, “This is too much. We are losing. We must escape.” 

But when that “I” steps aside, the door opens.

The psalm then asks, “Who is this King of Glory?” Israel expected a warlord, a conqueror, a problem-solver. We are not so different. We want someone to fix the situation, to remove the discomfort, to overthrow whatever oppresses us. 

Yet Jesus did not overthrow Rome. He revealed a different kind of glory — not a warlord, not a tribal champion, 

but what we might call the Beatitude King: 

glory wearing meekness, 

power clothed in mercy, 

majesty bearing wounds.

Psalm 24 is not only about welcoming someone in; it is about allowing something to move through. 

“Let eternity flow through you.” 

When the heart opens and the ego loosens its grip, Christ in you — the hope of glory — begins to rise into awareness. 

You become a vessel. This is not something you strain to produce; it is something that flows.

It flows into conversations, into conflict, into grief, into ordinary rooms. 

When you choose mercy instead of retaliation, eternity flows. 

When grief gives birth to compassion instead of cynicism, eternity flows. 

When peace enters conflict without taking sides, eternity flows. 

You have seen it: two children arguing, tension thick in the room. You enter not to dominate or defend, but simply present and grounded. The atmosphere shifts. Presence changes the field.

The question is not whether the King of Glory is willing to enter. The psalm never suggests reluctance on His part. 

The invitation is directed at the gates.

“Lift up your heads.”

Lift your awareness above fear. 

Lift your interior gaze beyond scarcity and self-protection. 

Let the ego step aside long enough for something deeper to move.

Because when the gate opens, eternity does not arrive with noise. 

It flows from your inner being like a fountain of life - unending merciful life.

It flows as mercy in a moment where retaliation would have been easier. 

It flows as calm in the middle of panic. 

It flows as quiet courage when the old landmarks have vanished. 

It flows as love that is not calculating its return.

And when eternity flows through a human being, time itself feels different. 

The atmosphere shifts. 

Rooms settle. 

Conflicts soften. 

The wilderness becomes habitable.

Jesus, on the hillside, gives us a simple roadmap to discover the door that is holding back the flow. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Empty enough to receive.

“Blessed are the merciful.”

Soft enough to release.

“Blessed are the pure in heart.”

Undivided enough to see.

That is enough. 

Poverty loosens pride. 

Mercy clears resentment. 

Purity removes duplicity.

And suddenly the door is no longer jammed. 

The Beatitudes are not moral ideals. 

They are coordinates for flow. They show us where pride has jammed the hinge, where resentment has bolted the door, where fear has narrowed the passage.

When those obstructions are cleared, the King of Glory is no longer an idea to defend. He becomes a presence that moves.

We do not merely believe in Him.

We become doors through which He walks again.

And eternity flows.