When I was growing up, we were sure Jesus was coming back just any day. We poured over Revelation in our churches looking for signs of His return. We used calculations and sometimes even bizarre mathematic calculations to try to find out who might be the dreaded Antichrist. You’d be surprised how many people had names whose letters, when swapped out for numbers, added up to—you guessed it—666.
“You’d better be ready,” our preachers warned us, “Jesus is coming back to judge the world.” As you can imagine, that kind of anticipation exhausted our imaginations, and we went back to talking about how Jesus can help you live in the moment.
Then, I found out something. Jesus comes every day. His presence may not be announced with blaring trumpets or the splitting of the skies, but He comes just the same.
He may come and bring peace and reassurance during a tough moment of prayer.
He may come and invite me to join Him in loving a broken, confused, and lost friend.
He may come confronting me about a deeply held private sin. You know the ones. “They aren’t hurting anyone but me…” “No one knows this but me…” You know, those last private sins we hold onto…like the Oreos stuffed back in the cupboard behind everything else.
Jesus may want to talk about why I’m so slow being obedient in a particular area of my life.
I guess there are lots of reasons that would prompt Jesus to be near His children, not the least of which is we’re lonely a lot of the time. There’s something about our world that makes us feel all by ourselves even when we’re in a crowd.
Here’s a few things I’ve learned about Jesus’ coming:
- Learn to expect His presence. Jesus promised He wouldn’t leave us alone, and that means Jesus is close even when we can’t see Him. Why can’t we see Him? There are a lot of reasons. We get distracted. We get impatient and then give up. The biggest reason is that we haven’t trained our eyes to look for Him. Our eyes are really good at seeing what we tell them to see. Most of us have never told our eyes to look for Jesus.
- Learn not to be afraid of His presence. I know that sounds odd, but a lot of us are afraid of Jesus. We’re scared Jesus is going to punish us for our latest failure or condemn us for being the losers we are, but nothing could be further from the truth. His unfailing love drives Jesus to us. Even His judgment is spoken in mercy. Whenever He confronts us, it’s for our own good—for our own lives. Grace is the reason He’s coming.
- Learn to savor the moment. Most of us live too fast. We’re moving from this task to that one, from this meeting to that one, and when Jesus does show up, we don’t have any space or time for Him. Learn to slow down when Jesus is near. There’s a reason He’s close. Be sure you don’t miss it.
There are a hundred more things I could write, but you get the picture. Yes, one day the trumpet will sound, and skies will split open, and Christ will return in triumph. Until then, He comes quietly, but He comes. Be ready when He does.
