Hide and Go Seek Blog

The twelfth of July, 2006. Hezbollah, a paramilitary militia from the southern country of Lebanon, a predominantly Muslim nation, fire rockets aimed the Northern region of Israel. This starts what will be known throughout the region today as the July War. Not surprisingly, it also instigates again the talks of a long ago resurrected man from Nazareth, Messiah and savior of the Jews. The talks are of his foretold return. The return prophesied by Christ himself in the Gospels. And so the murmurs start of the end days, of mysteries and prophesies spoken long ago in a time of unbalance in the kingdom.
A guest, at the hotel, asked one day in July, “So…Is this the big one?” I was puzzled at first, but soon realized that it was this return that he was talking about. “Is Christ coming back,” he continued, “Is this the end?”
The expression in his face was no more serious than any answer I could give him. I looked at him and simply said, “I hope so.”
To qualify my answer I continued. “I think that this mindset of living in the days of Christ return is something that God never intended us to lose. These people in the middle east are forced to live everyday in preparation for it being there last, simply because the bombs are dropping, and at any moment it could be the end. That’s how God wants us to live. In the days of Christ’s return.”
This brings a supremacy to living out God’s commandments. No more lackadaisical nominal faith, but a Christianity that becomes pertinent out of necessity. Even more, life becomes romanticized-that is, passionate and fervent because we start living. Living for right now. We start making the decisions that we should have made a long time ago. There is an urgency in every action. You start thinking about the little things. Brushing your teeth moves from the mundane to a sacrifice of essential moments in history.
In a time when we have long forgotten the urgency of Christ’s return, as a corporation of human beings, we tend to sit on the fence a lot more. In Matthew, 12:36, Christ states that we will be judged by every idle word that we speak. I think that in a time of Christ’s return, words are used carefully, the most pertenant ones first. The words that would have the most impact. The apologies that need to be said. The “I forgive you”’s that can’t wait any longer.
“Do you know how beautiful you really are?”
“I love you so much, son”
“Daughter, you are my princess”
This is my mission. To live today. To not be afraid to be honest about how I feel, about what I know. To live with no regrets. To live in the hour of Christ’s return. To realize that the past in the cradle of God’s grace. To realize that the future really is a figment of our confident imagination, because in the past there has never been a reason to doubt the continuation of my right now. All this to know that as a belief in Christ, eternal life has already begun. To live as a heaven bound creature is to know that the right now is all there really is. I won’t, I cannot, let that go. I’m done sitting down and watching my dreams die in obscurity. I’m standing to live with no regrets. My words, I’m going to mean them. My thoughts, I’m going to process them a little to make I won’t regret saying them, and then I’m going to say them.
To me, this is living in the hour of Christ’s return.
, Chad