Dates

 The problem with setting specific dates and times for anything is that people will usually extend their patience up to that point and no further. It’s why people get so outraged when their flights are delayed or when their package arrives a couple of days later than it was supposed to. They had a definitive date in their minds wherein whatever the matter was would be concluded, finalized, and nevermore referred to. When the date gets pushed out, it becomes bothersome, worrisome, then frustrating.

Imagine you were anticipating the release of a movie you really wanted to see. Granted, nowadays, there aren’t many movies anyone’s looking forward to, but indulge me. Every time you show up to get your ticket for the film on the night it’s supposed to premiere, you are told that it got pushed back to next week. This doesn’t happen just once or twice, but ten, fifteen, twenty times. How long before you stop showing up to get your ticket? How long before you get that sour taste in the back of your throat and begin to turn against what you were looking forward to?

There’s nothing so tenacious as a spurned fan. They’ll blog, they’ll boycott, send hate mail, make t-shirts, and try to get others to join their cause. Someone who was indifferent likely would not have heard that the movie had been delayed. However, someone who knew every actor, their roles, how long the run time was, and who scored the music will have an emotional reaction to not being able to see it when they were promised.

Why go there? Why poke the bear? Because with each passing day, more and more believers are clinging to the hope that if they can just hang on for a few more days, a couple of weeks at most, they’ll get caught up, and that’ll be that. They’re getting a bit antsy because a handful of signposts that were, in their theological bend, supposed to herald the return of Christ have come and gone, and there has been no sign of a rapture, secret or otherwise.

In their minds, the release date keeps getting pushed back, and they’re beside themselves. Some have tried to tell them that the preview of the movie they were looking forward to was fan-made, a movie concept rather than a real production, but the only replies they got back were that it seemed too real to be fan-made, plus it was an excellent premise.

What’s worse is that the pimply kid at the theater thinks it’s real too, and every time you show up, he reassures you that next week will be the week that the greatest theatrical production of all time will be unveiled, but they had to keep it hush-hush so only real fans get to see this masterpiece.

The best-known date-specific prophecy in the Bible didn’t come to pass because the Ninevites repented in sackcloth and ash, and God relented for a hundred years. Bummer for Jonah but great news for the Ninevites. That should be an eye-opener, but it isn’t, and the worse things get, the more on edge people will become because they were promised something that isn’t materializing.  

What does this have to do with waiting on the fulfillment of God’s promises? Everything, actually. There is no expiration date on the promises of God. It’s not as though if Christ does not return until a specific date, then the wedding’s off, He’s never coming back, and we labored and sacrificed for naught.

What if Simeon had set an artificial cutoff date for himself? What if he’d purposed in his heart that if he reached one hundred, he’d stop going to the temple and waiting on the fulfillment of what the Holy Spirit had spoken to him?

We can’t give up while the finish line is in sight just because others decided it should be closer than it is. We can’t lose heart because what we thought would be doesn’t align with what is when what is, is what He said would be.

Waiting on the Lord and His promises must be done patiently, not with anxiousness and unease. We rest in Him, knowing He is not slack concerning His promise and that He has not forgotten or reneged.

Psalm 37:7-9, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret – it only causes harm. For evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.”

Our destination is assured. As cliché as it may sound, we know how the story ends. The only unknown to us, the angels in heaven, and even the Son is the when of it.

Granted, Harold Camping tried playing God not once but twice, but that didn’t turn out so well for him. How hard is it to just believe Jesus at His word? Evidently, for some, nigh impossible.

Matthew 24:36, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.”

That should’ve settled it, but it didn’t, and with each new twist of the screw, with each new plunge of the knife, with every new horror visited upon the world by those who’ve rejected God, those who settled on a specific event or date in their minds and hearts are shaken and troubled.

With love in Christ, 

Michael Boldea, Jr.