Thursday, October 21, 2010

Now & Later - more than just a chewy candy!

What do you think about? Do you spend much time thinking about the future?
My sister is 8 months pregnant, and it is causing our whole family to think a little more about the future - wanting to meet this new little boy or girl, wondering how its 2 older siblings will respond to it, dreaming about the baby's personality, passions, gifts, looks, and future.
Yet what if I told you that my sister and her husband haven't changed their lifestyle at all since finding out they are pregnant with their third child. What if they didn't consider their insurance plan, their birth plan, prepare their other two children for it, buy maternity clothes, buy prenatal vitamins, go to the midwife, stop drinking caffeine, prepare a place in their house for the baby, etc. You would probably say they are crazy and so would I! It would be as if they are living in denial of this upcoming event, as if that's going to change anything about the event happening.
Realistically, their knowledge of this future event (birth of the baby) should inform how they live for these 9 months and they should be preparing for that! We don't call pregnant women "expecting" for nothing!
Yet, my confession this morning is that so often I live my Christian life focused more on now in this present world than later in eternity...and I end up looking like I am crazy and in denial. As if denying or not thinking about eternity is going to change whether it happens or not. Regardless of how I live or believe, history isn't cyclical, Jesus is coming back, there will be a day of judgment, there will be a day of redemption & restoration. But it doesn't mean that we are to sit around with our silly formulas trying to figure out when Jesus is coming back (that would be as stupid as my sister & brother in law sitting around using formula trying to figure out exactly when the baby is coming), but rather we should let the reality of the future events inform how we live today. We should live in expectant anticipation!
How would I live today KNOWING that Jesus is coming back, that I will stand before a judge, knowing that the injustices and bad things will be redeemed and restored? How would my life be different today if I lived not just thinking about now, but also about later?

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this [world].”
~ C.S. Lewis

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