Think back to your childhood and how you would eagerly anticipate your birthday, Christmas, summer break, and all those other events in your life that were days or times set apart from the routine of life. Do you remember how the anticipation would build? The time spent counting the days until “the big day”? Every day was meaningful, as one day closer to the goal. You would go to sleep in anticipation of tomorrow getting you one day closer. Time was finite and infinite at the same time. You could not believe how long the days became as you counted them down. Hours would frequently seem to last for days … especially as you did the count down to summer break.
I’ll reveal my age from this next memory: As summer approached and the days got hotter, the windows of the classroom would be open to a humid breeze, and the only sounds the buzz of insects on the air and the tick of the clock on the wall. Tick, tick, tick. Sixty seconds in every minute. Sixty minutes in every hour. Seven hours in every school day… tick, tick, tick. Every ring of the school bell a mile marker of one more day complete, closer to “the day.”
What day is “the day” today? What day do we anticipate with every fiber of our being? What day do we count down to that we fill the seconds, minutes, and hours with preparation and anticipation? I hope it is “The Day” Our Lord returns. As adults, we seldom experience the childish glee and anticipation of summer break, vacations, Christmas and birthdays. The eager anticipation that we can barely contain is something that we frequently misplace in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives.
Christ could come at any minute. Anticipation! Christ could come tomorrow. Anticipation! Christ is coming and while we do not know the precise time. We do know He will come. Followers of Christ have from the moment of His ascension been anticipating His Return. But as time goes by, the anticipation may not have the power that we had as a child eager to get to “the day”. Yet we should be just as eager and living in avid anticipation for THE DAY that Christ returns.
Revelation 22:12 (NKJV)
And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.