A friend wrote me to ask about the end of days; what it might look like and when it could happen. A few people think next Saturday is the last day; to my friend I quoted a few verses from Revelations, but basically I replied that I do not know.
This week, I thought more about the concept of the Armageddon, spurred by the billboard ¼ mile from my office touting the end is near, and came to the following conclusion.
Not only do I not know when the second coming of Christ will be – I don’t care! It’s not my call when it will happen: God gets to make that decision. So why worry about it?
The bigger question is, and one written about many times; if I know when it will happen, what would I do differently? How would I change what I am doing today, Monday May 16, 2011, if I knew when the end would arrive?
Let’s play a little “what if” game. Suppose that you know the timing of the end of days, and that it’s not next week but also not longer than 15 years from now. What would you do now?
- “Spend more time with my kids.”
- “Spend more time with my parents.”
- “Do more with my friends.”
- “Quit my job!”
- “Pray more, or start to pray.”
- “Find the bible; I think it is in the nightstand.”
- “Write the story I have always dreamed of writing.”
- “Learn to play music, or paint.”
- “Go to the ocean, I’ve never seen it.”
The list could go on and on. Most of us, if we sit down and think about it, would make severe changes, given the importance of the information. Since we do not have the end of time information, though, we change very little, or not at all. (Most of my readers don’t need to change much, so the status quo is O.K. Or is it?)
If the list of changes we might create is a result of the careful consideration of what is important to each of us, then why wait to make changes? We do not know when our time on this planet will end, so like I said before, worrying about it is useless. But we do know things that are far more important.
- We know who we love.
- We know who loves us.
- We know our friends, and they know us.
- We know that God loves us more than we can love him.
So, I propose we do something about what we know, and not worry about what we don’t know. I think most of us would make changes that result in the prioritization of the people we love, and the God who created us. Then let’s get started now. I’ll bet big, life changing adjustments in our lives are not needed, but small changes in what’s important might be useful.
Organizing family dinners with kids who have moved out, and with brothers or sisters who rarely see family is hard work that often goes unnoticed. Keep doing it anyway – they need it.
Calling someone who lives in a different time zone on a busy weekend is sometimes too much work. Find the time – they need to hear your voice.
The kids say family vacations are a drag. They lie – they will enjoy the memory of those vacations long after we are gone.
Take one step and look back; you haven’t gone far. Look back after a thousand steps, and you can’t even see where you started. Small steps are a good thing.
Thanks for reading,
Michael Obermire