It's the end of the world as we know it.....

So, I guess I should start this post off with a couple disclaimers.

1. Eschatology is not my expertise by any standard.
2. I don’t care what you eat.

There now that you’re probably thoroughly confused where this post is going, let me explain.

Last night I made a face book post that was supposed to be funny and light hearted but apparently came across slightly passive aggressive. Shocker. For those of you too cool for Facebook here is the post;

Oops almost forgot another day of thanks! I think this is day 4, But I’ve forgotten like 2 or 3 of them, so I’m not really sure; all I know is day 30 is a long ways off.

1. I'm thankful that my husband constantly demonstrates that I'm his #1 ministry, even if it means being at the church at 10 o clock at night because I was whiney/needy/annoying yesterday :-) 
2. I'm thankful for the abundance of pumpkin spice everything that's coming my way soon- and no, I don't really care if it uses real pumpkin or not. Jesus is coming back for me weather or not I eat HFCS.
3. I'm thankful for my church family. I know I already said this one but I saw a couple of posts this week that have made me that much more grateful for a church that not only teaches the bible accurately but focuses more on love and  less on shame.

You would think the offense would come from that statement basically saying that some of my Facebook friends don’t go to bible-teaching, love-doing churches. But no, it was the one about High Fructose Corn Syrup that got under peoples skin. Whatever.

I was referring to the article that’s gone viral all about how the big bad wolfs at Starbucks don’t actually use “real pumpkin” in their pumpkin spice latte and how all the naturalists are freaked out by it, while your typical college aged white girls (ahem) are just excited for the return of the deliciously over sweetened well caffeinated beverage. Now, here is where my second disclaimer comes in, I don’t care what you eat. If you only want to eat organic everything then be my guest, if you want to live off of Taco Bell and McChickens, then more power to you. I really don’t care. 

Now, for my first disclaimer, eschatology is not something I spend a ton of time talking about or studying. I’ve studied just enough to know that Jesus is going to at some point return, but first some stuff has to hit the proverbial fan. By the way if that sounds like you- save yourself a couple grand and don’t go to bible college. They will look at you like you have ten heads when you don’t know/care if you are pre-trib, mid-trib or post -trib and then spend the remainder of the semester trying to convince you of which category you should fall into. 

However, I do know that over and over in scripture we see people asking Jesus “When” and he over and over responds with “Don’t worry about when, just be ready”.  Maybe this is where my frustration comes in when I hear some well-meaning evangelist proclaim that the end is near. Not only is that a terribly optimistic thing to say, but one would think someone who knows enough scripture to know that some of the things going on today were predicted 2000 years ago would also know enough to be a little more “ready”. But alas, they are not. 

Remember the whole 2012 thing? How people thought that some how the Mayans had it all figured out with their cave-wall schedule? Or my personal favorite, in 1999 when the world was supposed to somehow just shut off due to a mere computer glitch? 

The point is, that more people are focused on predicting the “when” than they are on “being ready”. I honestly think that if we truly believed Jesus Christ could return any minute, any hour, any day we wouldn’t waste so much time on things that don’t matter. For example, what kind of chemicals are in our pumpkin spice latte, or sleeping in, exercising, climbing the corporate ladder, checking twitter, DIY-ing, saving money, investing, instagramming our meals and whatever else non-important things we fill our days with. Now, by no means are any of those things bad nor am I saying I’ve not done any of those. I’m saying that I see so many Christians, myself included, proclaiming that Christ’s return is right around the corner but then still living as if it’s not. 

You know this whole “it‘s the end of the world as we know it” thing isn’t just for believers, if it was that awful 158 minutes of the movie “2012” wouldn’t have made the millions it did. But to be completely honest, I think the non-believers are more at peace with the end of the world than most Christians are. Terrible theology, I know. I understand that the end of the world means a lot more to the Christian than to the unbeliever, but I also think we can learn a thing or two about the way the unbelievers have come to terms with it, and therefore live their lives in a disorderly “YOLO” fashion. 

So we know what the unbelievers would do if they knew the end of the world was right around the corner, but what about us? The ambassadors of Christ? What would we do if we knew our window of opportunity was rapidly slamming shut?

Would we actually start being the hands and feet of our local churches?

Would we erase the battle lines we’ve drawn between us and our gay friends and just spend the last couple days loving them?

Would we lay down our theological differences and doctrinal debates long enough to just join hands?

Or would we continue on in our own selfish pride and desire to be proven right? I’m afraid that too many of us would, now that the eschatology and revelation-esque debates would have taken on a new zeal.

The truth is, none of us know how it will go down. But I can take a wild stab in the dark that on the day that Jesus does come back for His bride we won’t be worried about who was wrong and who was right, instead the sight of our Beloved will be more than we can bear and we will be consumed with His glory. The same Glory that should be consuming our actions right now. 

So if these really are the last days, and everywhere we look we see proof of that then I suggest we start acting like it. That means laying down the things that will fade along with this world like our theology, pumpkin spice lattes, and other selfish desires- and instead come together hand in hand, ready for battle. Not a battle of right vs. wrong but rather a battle for the souls that are lost. Coming together in one accord, to see his Kingdom come, His will be done. So let’s do it.