Read 2 Peter 3

Patience. We must be patient. We must be willing to be made patient. The Lord’s will and plan require us to wait. Not in agony but in faith and confidence that time in between steps is never wasted. Our Lord is always at work in us as long as we are always in pursuit of him. However, knowing him and obeying him requires patience. Waiting on the Lord’s return cannot become an idol.  Now should we remain idle.  We have work to do now. We have a purpose where we are right now. We are not then. We are now. To ignore the leading of the Lord today is to forsake his command to follow him patiently one day at a time. We all want to know. We all have questions we want answered? What will the end look like? When will it happen? Who will do what? But are these to be our daily concerns? No. Patience. We must wait patiently for the Lord to reveal his plan according to his timing. We are allowed to wonder and be curious about the end. However, in taking this good news of Jesus to the world we are not to guess about the end. We are not to hypothesize. We are not to imagine and create. The end will come and when it does all people in all nations will know precisely what is happening. Until then, tell them about Jesus. Tell them about how God has accomplished things in your life outside of your planning and timing. Your new life in Jesus did not take a conventional route nor did it come when you thought it would. Knowing this to be true, how we can we then approach the end in such a linear and predictable manner? The prophets wrote about the Messiah Jesus hundreds of years before their words were approved and verified by the life of Jesus. They were mocked and cast out. But they were right. God’s word never fails. It will outlast the entire creation we see today. God has never been proven to be wrong and nothing foretold about Jesus and by Jesus has ever failed or ever will. The promise of the end is God’s word and therefore it will happen. But we know little more than that. Why claim to? Be patient and wait with the rest of us. There is peace to be found in allowing God to be in control of such things. It is his grace that we have not been given the burden of knowing too much. Rejoice that he has protected us from seeing too much. Preach the good news and never hide the fact that time is short.   How much? We do not know. But we know that every day matters, every person matters and God will accomplish what he said. Until then, wait, preach, pray and wait.