Everyday Rapture

Matthew 24:42 tells us, "Be on the watch, therefore, because you do not know on which day your Lord is coming."

Preacher Harold Camping, from Family Radio, has predicted that tomorrow, May 21, the Lord is coming back, and he has even predicted at which hour.

Yes, the Lord is returning, but it isn't the end of the world that we need to worry about so much. What we should be concerned about is when He comes for each of us as individuals in our own lives, and to be ready each day for His return for ourselves.

I am just going to respond to this from my personal point of view. I have faced my own mortality a few times in my life, and I am still here. The Lord isn't done with me yet. As I write this, we will be going to a memorial service tonight for the father of a friend of our son and daughter-in-law. Frank was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in late March, and now we are attending his memorial less than two months later. No one knows the hour—for the world, or for ourselves—except God.

When I was still sighted, as I drove home from work one day down a hill behind our home, I passed a scene that has stuck in my mind all these years. I was the only car on the road, and passed a police officer just placing a blanket over the body of a motorcyclist. Apparently he had spun out of control on this road, and I'm sure that he never dreamed that he would be meeting his Maker at the bottom of that hill. As I drove past, I sent up a little prayer hoping that he had known that the Lord loved him. I don't say this to be morbid, but just to be realistic.

I have already written about having a "near death" experience when I was 20, and that my dad died of a sudden massive heart attack after we just finished a nice family dinner. To worry about "doomsday" is, in my opinion, a waste of time. Each day the Lord gives us is a gift, and an opportunity to live it the best we can. I don't know when the Lord will return—maybe soon, but only God knows. The thing I do know for sure is that each day is a day closer to the Lord's return for me personally, and I want to be ready, and to keep in mind that I will (we all will) have to give an account for how I used the time He gave me.

When Ed and I were in Rome, I thought in my mind as we walked miles each day how thankful I was to have that chance, and that we were even able to be there. Only a few years ago, before my kidney transplant in 2007, I was so sick that even some of my doctors, as I learned later, weren't all that optimistic. I was so weak that I literally couldn't walk from one floor of our house to another without difficulty. I had to have thirteen blood transfusions while I was on dialysis to even keep my hemoglobin in a reasonable range.

Yet, here we were walking up and down the hills of Rome; several times I sent up a silent prayer of gratitude. Without really talking too much about it, Ed and I were both thinking that this was in a way a trip of thanksgiving to the Lord for all that He got us through in the past few years. We were both healthy at the moment, and we were grateful to be able to celebrate that fact.

Because of my past experiences, perhaps I keep in mind that life is short. I just wake up in the morning being thankful for each day, and giving it to the Lord for whatever it brings. I try to do the best I can, and to love my family with all my heart.

If we all lived each day as if it might be the last, how would that change our perspective? What would we do, what would we say to the people in our lives, and how would we treat everyone around us? I know that each day is a gift. What would we notice, instead of taking for granted? Life is to be appreciated, and lived to the fullest.

One of these days the Lord will return, but that is in His time frame, not ours. For now, "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!" (Psalm 118:24)