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# Poke Holes in the Darkness
- URL: https://www.belonging.house/poke-holes-in-the-darkness/
- Published: 2025-10-24T10:02:50.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-24T23:50:53.000Z
- Description: Running ahead and finding the way.
- Author: Christ John Otto
- Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1784937001272, #Import 2026-07-24 23:50

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThank you for your prayers.  
  
One day a friend came up to me  
and said something odd.  
  
“You are like the pointy end of the spear.”  
  
There was a time when the romantic idea  
of the “forerunner” was going around the church.  
  
There is **nothing romantic**  
about running ahead of the pack.  
There is more danger out ahead,  
and more often than not,  
the pack behind you is happy to **shoot you in the back**.  
  
Going ahead is part of the   
prophetic calling.  
It is central to the calling on the army of artists.  
Run ahead  
and make a way  
**for the coming of the Lord.**  
  
And I can promise you this.  
**Folks will not understand.**  
They will ask why you aren’t doing the “ministry” thing.  
They will ask why you are working hard  
but the fruit and the success is slim.  
Folks will wonder what on earth is motivating you.  
  
**Nothing on earth is motivating you.**  
When you hear the call in the desert,  
“Prepare the way of the Lord,”  
and you go out to make a path  
in the wilderness,  
clearing it of stones,  
and cutting back the underbrush,  
you are called to a solitary calling.  
  
You are not called to be a pack dweller.  
  
If you hear His voice,  
and follow it faithfully,  
you are given a unique task.  
  
Make a way  
**for the coming of the Lord.**  
  
Part of our forerunner calling   
is to the “place at the gate.”  
Earlier this year the Lord   
began speaking to me about   
New York City.  
We pray for four cities almost daily:  
New York, London, Jerusalem, and Hong Kong.  
  
**The Lord first spoke to me about New York in 1987 or 1988.**  
I thought I was going there a long time ago.  
  
Instead,  
I faced the furnace of humiliation,  
and I learned a lot about life,   
and about the Kingdom of God.  
  
Last week a few members of our prayer team accompanied me to New York,  
and we walked into Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.  
It was packed:  
like Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday packed.  
Not ideal for sight seeing.  
  
I was about to leave,  
when Zuzana poked me and said   
"Look, there is a bishop up front."  
It wasn’t a bishop.  
It was Sean Cardinal O’Malley from Boston.  
I was invited to work with Cardinal O’Malley   
on a pro-life task force over ten years ago.  
What are the chances of walking into St. Pat's and seeing a cardinal I knew?  
  
I turned to the group and said,  
"I think we need to stay."  
  
We ended up joining a procession  
of roughly 2000 Catholics  
taking the Presence of Jesus into  
mid-town Manhattan,  
Rockefeller Center,  
and Times Square.  
  
I have prayer walked a lot of places,  
and I have prayer walked New York.  
**But I have never prayer walked like this before.**  
  
God is calling us  
to leave our religious ministry grid behind.  
He is calling us to be the pointy end  
that pokes holes  
in the Kingdom of darkness  
as a sign and a wonder.  
  
Make a way  
for the coming of the Lord.  
  
He Never Fails,

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ed/59/ed590bfa-368b-4bcf-b1f2-6ba9ca9abcdb/content/images/2026/07/8602016a-5c6c-4730-9eee-25488b586bb2_1200x125-heic.jpg)