The Journey of Faith: 16 Years of Blogging Insights

By Elizabeth Prata

In 2009, I launched The End Time blog to share my journey of faith, transitioning from a personal blog focused on art to a platform for discussing theology and discernment. Inspired by my salvation, I write about biblical truths, encouraging readers to recognize the urgency of their earthly walk with Jesus.

In January 2009 I started The End Time blog. It began on blogspot, and in 2019 I moved it to WordPress. The earliest blogs didn’t come over from blogspot because WordPress has a byte/size limit when importing.

I had been blogging on my personal blog The Quiet Life since 2006. As I walked further into my faith, I noticed more of my output was religious in nature. So I created a second blog in order to pursue theology, discernment, encouragement on The End Time, and stick with personal thoughts on art, photography, and thrifting on The Quiet Life.

My earliest blog essays were breathless with newspaper eisegesis. I’d look at the newspaper (or any news media) and write about current events from a biblical perspective. Newspaper eisegesis isn’t a good idea as a long term practice, but I don’t apologize for my early interest in it because I was amazed and gushing with joy at all my lifetime of questions being finally answered. I had actively wondered, ‘Why are the Jews so hated?’ ‘Why is there always a war somewhere?’ ‘Why are people so awful?’ ‘What made Hitler so evil?’ ‘What is the point of life?’ Not knowng Jesus back then, I never could find the answers.

At salvation, suddenly my eyes were opened and I could see two worldviews, the secular one I’d been viewing life through for 40 years, and the Christian one I was now able to see. What a thrill! I was joyous and breathless with finally being able to find answers, and trust the answers, because the Bible is a transcendent document from God, not man. I felt a palpable relief to know the truth at long last.

I’ve always been a writer, so it felt logical to continue writing as a way tp process my growth and interest in the word of God and the things of God on this platform. Blogs began as a sort of personal diary, or log. Originally they were called ‘weblogs’ and it got shortened to blog. Now people use substacks, but in my view those the same as a blog, just fancy. Personal thoughts published on an online platform.

I named the blog The End Time because we are IN the time of the end. We have been since Jesus ascended and will be until He returns. I wanted to keep that reality present in my mind and readers’ minds. We should walk this earth as if any moment could be our last in service to Jesus, because it well could be. At some point, our earthly tent will be rolled up and translated to heaven and we will be assessed on everything we did up to the moment we passed into glory. Make each moment count. That is why it’s named The End Time, to express urgency for our earthly walk.

It soon became apparent why the Lord had honed my writing over the previous 30 years, and also had given me a spiritual gift of discernment. I write about false teachers, false movements, and warn to stay on the center line of biblical doctrine. I also write about creation, because it’s fascinating, about encouraging the saints, and Christian theological and fiction book reviews. I’m a reader as well as a writer.

I could write for HIM! So the blog began and never stopped. Most essays on here are unique with only a few repeats. In my pre-salvation days, I would thoroughly study a current topic, but then exhaust it, because most subjects are finite after all. For example, all I could learn about King Arthur, Mollusks, Roman Emperors…history is finite. You can get to the end of a topic, then I’d have to find a new area of interest.

The Bible is infinite! I can NEVER exhaust the topics in this marvelous book. It is endless, and every time I open it there is something new and fresh the Spirit reveals. That is how you get 7000 unique essays from it. Reliance on the Spirit to reveal the word’s wonders is calming for me, a joy, and an endless interest. I mean, you see there are over 200 drafts waiting to be explored! I plunk down some thoughts in a draft I’d start and then I go “Squirrel!” like the dog in the movie ‘Up’ and start another draft with other thoughts.

The day may come when the Lord impresses upon me through the Spirit to go a different direction and stop the blog. But there has never been a day when I felt I HAD TO write, it’s never a drudgery. I’m always eager. I pray that for my part, I do not grow weary, because this is a service to the Lord in obedience to His commands to encourage one another, to edify the saints using the gifts we’re given, and to grow in His likeness.