Digging Deeper – November 20, 2023
Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the Spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen.
James 5:7 (NLT)
ARE WE THERE YET?
“Are we there yet?” That cry is the bane of every parent’s existence. How do children know this phrase? It seems pre-loaded in their juvenile brains and programmed to activate once they have been in a moving vehicle for at least 15 minutes.
And how many parents throw the answers back to the query? “Are we still moving?” “Does it look like we are there?” “Time will pass faster if you quit asking.” That last one is untrue, but we’ll do anything to stop the question!
I remember yelling that question from the back of the LTD Country Squire on our frequent trips to North Carolina to visit cousins, or on the drive to a fun destination like King’s Island. It was a sincere question, even though it was annoying to my parents and logically pointless (because we were obviously NOT there).
For a child, everything seems to take forever. A road trip seems to be never-ending, and Christmas always seems so far away. And now, as adults, we lose that intense anticipation.
In James’s passage, we are called to be patient while waiting for Christ’s return. Can you imagine the anticipation of those first-century Christians, some of whom had seen Jesus face to face, had witnessed his resurrection, or had seen him taken into heaven? Knowing he was coming back would be a shadow over every day they lived.
Now, 2000 years later, I think perhaps we are too patient. When was the last time you woke in the morning and thought, “Maybe Jesus is coming back today!” I think for many of us, verse 7 has lost its impact. We go about our day as if the world will last forever.
His coming is as inevitable as the rains in the Fall and the Spring. So this week, take the time to get excited about the fact that we serve a risen Savior who has promised to return. And may our response to that promise be the same as what we find in the next to last verse in our Bible, Revelation 22:20:
He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
Chris Boggess is the Next Generation/Family Pastor at NorthStar Church. He grew up in St. Albans, West Virginia, and still cheers for the Mountaineers. He and his wife, Heather, have two grown children and one granddaughter.