Dec 13 – Living with the End in Mind
The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness.
One of the first memories I have of church was seeing pamphlets addressing the fear of Y2K. The world sure seemed like it was ending when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. And as an impressionable youngster, I was convinced that the world would end on December 21 2012, as the “prophecies” had foretold.
Every generation faces their own fear of the future. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to grow up during the Depression, World War II, or the Cold War, for example. Each generation of human beings has had to face conditions that have caused them to question God’s apparent inactivity, or at the very least, slowness in answering the cries of the people of God. We look up to the heavens and ask, “how long, O Lord?”
The confident hope of God’s people is contained in our daily reading. God is not slow in responding our pleas to finally make all things new (Isa 43:18). God wishes for all to come to repentance.
Had God answered the prayers of the church in Peter’s day in the way that they wanted, our own existence would be nothing but an idea in the far recesses of God’s mind, a potentiality that would never be explored.
Thank God that God is patient with creation! God wants us and future generations yet unborn to glorify the Lord Jesus. For now, we wait with expectation, knowing that God will fulfill the promises of long ago. God will continually bring newness into the world. And it all starts with the hope we have now of a newborn baby, whose birth we remember every year.
God, we are anxious and afraid, but you are faithful. Come, Lord Jesus! Make haste to help us! But also continue to do the patient work of bringing us all into your Kingdom. Amen.
Joel Peterson