Free Reluctant Demon by Linda Rios Brook

"first day," "the second day," and so on, I thought nothing about it. None of us could have imagined what He was about to do with that new dimension I mentioned earlier, the one He called "time." Even if I had realized what He was doing, I would not have guessed that it had anything to do with us. Earth might be subject to time, but not angels—or demons. We could observe it, but we were outside its boundaries. We were eternal beings, after all.
    There was no warning whatsoever. W h e n the pillars started shaking and collapsing and the floor shifted under us, we still did not get it. Then there came a loud rushing sound that almost deafened us and sent us tumbling until I thought we were falling out of heaven all over again.
    When the tossing and rumbling finally subsided, I wasn't sure where we were. It seemed as though we were still in second heaven, but something was drastically different. We might never have really figured it out on our own had Satan not whirled to face us with wrath and rage and fear spilling from his eyes and his mouth.
    "We have been sucked into time," he growled.
    And that is exactly what happened. God set a clock for us. He introduced time into eternity. Seconds, minutes, hours, and days passing and not returning and not repeating. It was undeniable that we were being pulled forward in time, but toward what?
    How can I describe it so that you can understand?
    Consider how you and everything upon Earth are subject to a law, a force that you know as gravity. It is a consistent and unchanging law that God ordained. You do not think about it because it has always been there.
    It is everywhere, and all things on Earth or coming near Earth are subject to the law of gravity and will obey it—except for us.
    We angels cannot see the force per se, although we can easily observe what it does, but we ourselves are not subject to its effect. There is no up or down for us; we just "are." If we were suddenly made subject to gravita-tional pull, it would be an unnatural shift in our sense of being. It would mean that we were part of Earth's destiny. It would mean that we had become anchored to its purpose. We would be forced to adjust to a new reality. For one thing, we would have to learn the limitations of direction.
    Time had begun for us. Time was moving forward, and it was pulling us along. If it had "begun," did that mean it would also "end"? I had a million questions and no one to ask. What was the purpose of time where we were concerned? What could it possibly mean?
    The others staggered about, each trying to find his equilibrium in this strange new reality, so no one was interested in discussing the philosophy of it with me.
    Perhaps it is because we now had a reference point in time that what happened next seemed so startling. If it had occurred in heaven, third heaven where God lived, it would have been ordinary. No one would have noticed.
    After all, they were always together in paradise.
    The three of Them—Yahweh, Adonai, and Ruah Ha Kadosh—the Godhead. But suddenly, there They were on Earth. I was sure we had never known them to leave heaven.
    "What is happening?" the demon voices murmured to each other.
    "Look, there!" another voice shouted.
    We looked up and saw Michael's warring angels gathered at the perimeter of this new expanse called
    "sky." I just knew they were there to hunt us down and finish us off.
    "Run, run, run," I stammered pulling on the wings of the demons, trying to make them see the good sense of getting away. One brushed me away so hard that I lost my balance and fell, where I decided to stay. Looking through the group of standing demons, I could see the mighty guards of heaven with their fiery swords drawn and at the ready, but for what purpose if not to wipe us out?
    Suddenly, everything and everyone became eerily still. A reverent silence descended around us. It was as if everything in heaven and Earth had stopped for a moment—even time. The winds pulled back in