Christmas is coming to the Douglas household! We’re not sure when. It’s kind of like waiting for the second coming of Jesus. We know He’s coming back soon, but we don’t know exactly when.
We see signs that our Christmas is coming. Our Christmas tree tells us that some gifts will soon be wrapped and placed under the tree. The kids are whispering and planning what to get for each other. We are ordering things online now that we have internet again and an address to have our stuff sent to.
The little ones are excited and asking when Christmas will be here. I can honestly tell them, “I don’t know when.” I’m waiting for everything to come together (gifts to be delivered) and for the conditions to be right for Christmas to happen. The snow has been a joyous sign! I don’t know when Christmas will be. But the kids know that Christmas will happen because Mommy said it would.
Isn’t that how we should live as Christians waiting for the return of Jesus? We know that He’s coming back. We just don’t know when. We see signs of His coming. He told us what some of those signs would be. We see that Israel miraculously became a nation again, fulfilling the prophecy that the fig tree would blossom.
Mark 13:28-37
28Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:
29So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.
30Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
31Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
32But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
33Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
34For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.
35Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:
36Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.
37And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.
He told us that He’s coming back, so we know that it’s going to happen.
The question is: Are we excited about His coming? Are we anxiously awaiting the return of our Bridegroom?
We should be more excited about it than children are about the coming of Christmas morning.
Examine yourself right now. Are you watching or sleeping?
"Oh that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse in to the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no other's hands the sacred and holy trust given to her." -JR Miller
