As I write this, I am assuming that my brothers and sisters in Christ are still around to read it (not that they do – Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they miss). I posit this as many have forecast that the rapture of the church would have occurred yesterday on September 23. That so many would presume to make such a prediction despite Jesus having said no one knows the day or the hour1, it serves to remind us how selective many of us are in our reading of the scripture.
Notwithstanding, I am grateful that it did not occur. I’ve always been somewhat fearful of the rapture – of being caught up in the air2. My fears are personal ones – I don’t like heights and I’m afraid that there might be a weight limit. Having visited Legoland with my daughter, I was surprised that every ride had a weight limit that I exceeded, though they were happy to take my full price of admission without the advisal that my presence would only be supervisory. I imagine the rapture occurring while I am working in the yard – a flash of light, perhaps, and as in the movies my clothing being left in a heap next to the weedwhacker. But, as I am carried up to perhaps 30-35 feet, I imagine my lift subsiding and plunging back to the earth. While the world marvels at the disappearance of the church, I am later found, naked, scratched, battered, and bruised amongst the rose bushes and bougainvillea. So, I am sincerely grateful that no one knows the day or hour, most especially me. I can focus instead on keeping my heart ready and repeatedly visiting the gym to lessen my weight and my fears.
We live in a fallen world – don’t look at me, it was fallen when I got here. Despite that awareness, it still shocks us when evil people do evil things. I once worked in a jail, processing detainees in and out, and it opened my eyes to the realization of how blind I was. I had always assumed that evil people – murderers, rapists, robbers, and other sundry criminals; would look evil. But it was the banality of evil, the banality of both their appearance and their manner, that was both shocking and terrifying. My comfortable confidence that their villainy would be easily recognizable was shattered and I found myself reluctant to engage with faces that seemed familiar, as I could never be sure as to on what side of the bars I had previously encountered them.
But as evil befalls the righteous and unspeakable acts are perpetrated by the heretofore seemingly innocent, I take comfort in the sure and certain knowledge that the world is safely in our Lord’s hands. I will trust in Him (still working on the weight-limit thing, though). Jesus admonished us in Luke 12:34 “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Accordingly, sufficient unto the day is the good thereof. I will be grateful for each day lent to me and trust Him for his faithful provision.
1 Matthew 24:36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
2 1st Thessalonians 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
In a dry and thirsty land 